Opening the Circle
by MizJoely
Summary: While Ace and the Doctor's son remain trapped on the Master's TARDIS, the 7th Dr and Leela's daughter Noni bring Susan to his first self before setting off to rescue the other two. Sequel to End of the Circle.
1. Stowaway

**Prologue**

The Doctor lay on the floor of the TARDIS, head under the console, sonic screwdriver in hand as he dismantled the tracking device he'd cobbled together. It had been built in haste, modified in even more haste, and only led them where the Master wanted them to be. Taking it apart would help pass the time until they arrived at their destination: his past, and Susan's future.

He spared a moment to glance over at her, to reassure himself of her presence. She lay sleeping in a small cradle near the interior door, within easy reach if necessary. He found it impossible to let her out of his sight. Soon enough she would be gone, but for now, he wanted her nearby.

He raised himself on one elbow, listening with a faint smile as Susan continued to sleep, undisturbed by his noisy actions. "You can come out now," he called. "If I was going to send you home, young lady, believe me, you'd be there already."

The interior door opened slowly, and Noni poked her head around the corner. Leela and Andred's daughter sounded curious, unafraid of his reaction to her presence and unfazed by his knowledge that she was on board. "How did you know I was there?" She glanced down at Susan and allowed a brief, satisfied smile to cross her face.

"I didn't leave the door unlocked, and the only way anyone could open it was if they had a key. Ace's key was with her belongings when I packed them, and it was missing when I put them in her room on the TARDIS," the Doctor replied.

"You're not angry?" Noni ventured, squatting down next to the Doctor's tool kit.

He shook his head and grunted as the bolt he was attempting to remove stuck fast. " Could you hand me that?" He pointed without looking, and Noni picked up the exotic-looking tool he'd requested, placing it delicately in his hand. He grunted again, this time in appreciation, then returned to work. "Your parents know where you are, I presume?"

"I left them a note," Noni hastened to assure him. He glanced over at her, suppressing a smile. Like her mother, her most prominent accessories were a brace of daggers tucked into both boot-tops, and one on her hip as well.

The Doctor nodded at the largest dagger. "Can you throw those as well as your mother?"

"Better," she boasted, then blushed.

The Doctor felt another smile tugging at his lips. "Of course," he murmured. Then, in a louder voice: "After you're done helping me, you can take care of Susan. I'm sure it'll be a comfort to her to have a familiar face around, at least until we take her to my first self."

Noni smiled in relief. "Yes, Doctor."

He returned to work, the smile fading as he struggled anew with the recalcitrant bolt. A frown dug furrows between his eyebrows. It wouldn't hurt to take Noni to see his first self; he didn't specifically remember anyone else being there, but all the memories hadn't fully returned just yet, so he refused to worry about it. After everything was settled with Susan, he'd take Noni back home again. After all, she'd gone to a lot of trouble to sneak herself on board.

The frown deepened. Dropping Noni back on Gallifrey would be the easy part. Not only was he going to be asking his first self to take on an enormous responsibility, but he was going to ask him to help figure out another way to locate Ace and Kyris. He'd need all the help he could get.

Especially since he'd managed to destroy the data retriever Romana had so painstakingly built for him.

**oOo**

Ace's eyes fluttered open. Blearily, she saw the base of a TARDIS console, with Kyris lying motionless next to it. Motionless, but still breathing, she noted, her thoughts fuzzy, unfocused. What had happened to her, to them? She struggled up on one elbow, stretching her hand toward the Doctor's son, then collapsed back to the floor as a wave of dizziness surged over her. Her head ached, she realized dimly. Someone must have hit her.

A sharp tapping sound caught her attention, the rat-a-tat-tat of heels against a floor. The sound came closer, closer, until it stopped, and she realized hazily that the feet were right in front of her. A woman's feet, in black heels. Then a woman's voice, nasal Australian tones hammering Ace's ears almost as sharply as the shoes had: "Who the bloody hell are you? And what did you do with the Master?"

Then, mercifully, darkness.

**ooooOooo**

The sounds of a baby fussing drifted through the corridors of the Doctor's TARDIS, followed immediately by a young girl's voice crooning some soft lullaby, then silence. A silence that only lasted as long as it took Noni to bring Susan to the Console Room. The baby was sucking contentedly on a bottle and expertly swaddled in a soft green blanket. Noni smiled down at the baby, then looked over at the Doctor, who was standing at the Console, fiddling with the controls as usual.

What wasn't usual, however, was the presence of Susan's stroller and diaper bag sitting near the base of the Console, which Noni saw as a bad sign. A very bad sign.

It had only been a few days since they'd left Gallifrey on their quest to bring Susan to the Doctor's first self, and as far as Noni was concerned those days had passed all too quickly. She still objected to the Doctor taking the baby away from Gallifrey, to be raised by a man she, for all intents and purposes, had never met. But the Doctor had made up his mind to bring Susan to his first self while he searched for her parents, so Noni had stowed away on his TARDIS, determined to keep watch over the baby for as long as possible. However short a time that was now appearing to be.

The Doctor glanced at her, summing up her appearance with a flick of an eyelid. Sandy brown hair, neatly braided. Leather boots and vest over sturdy trousers and modest blouse. The knives he could see, strapped low on her hip and tucked into the top of each boot, accompanied no doubt by a few knives he couldn't see. Worried green eyes, normally generous mouth tightened into an equally worried knot. And Susan, the one accessory she was never without, at least not since sneaking onto the TARDIS. The one he was about to part her from, permanently, with two simple words: "We've arrived."

Noni lowered her head as she fussed with Susan's blanket. "Arrived where?" _Let it be anywhere except where I think it is,_ she prayed.

"Arrived here, of course," was the Doctor's unhelpful answer. "Where we've been aiming for." At her blank look, he clarified: "Earth." Noni's heart sank as he shrugged Susan's diaper bag onto his left shoulder and opened up the stroller. He'd found the items in the TARDIS storage area, along with a crib and other baby furniture that looked vaguely familiar in a way that made him suspect he'd made use of it before. And, obviously, would again. Gods of the Universe how he hated paradoxes!

"Your first self was on Earth? Why?" She hadn't known that, and had deliberately refused to ask their exact destination. As if not knowing would keep it from being real.

The Doctor shrugged. "I don't remember, and it really isn't important right now."

"It is if he was here because of some disaster or emergency." Noni's tone was belligerent. She held Susan protectively. "We're not dropping her off with _him_ if he's in the middle of saving the world."

"No, it was nothing like that," the Doctor assured her, then paused. "At least, I don't think it was...no, no, no, definitely not," he decided. "I'd been doing some research in a borrowed TARDIS." He glanced around affectionately. "This one, to be accurate."

"Borrowed from whom?" Noni's tone was skeptical.

"That's not important now," the Doctor evaded as he pulled the lever to open the outside door. He reached down and scooped up Susan's belongings, staggering under the load. Amazing how much stuff was considered vitally necessary for such a small person. "It doesn't matter in the long run since I obviously never returned it." He strode out the door, leaving the stroller for Noni to load the baby into.

**oOo**

It was quite an ordinary house they'd landed next to, ordinary for Earth, Noni assumed. A bit exotic to her eyes, used as they were to Gallifreyan architecture, primitive, even, but she'd seen pictures of Earth during this time period and nothing about this small white house made it stand out in any way.

The Doctor paused before marching up to the front door, rapping on it smartly with the end of his brolly. After a moment the door opened, and Noni craned her head to get a good look as the Doctor's first self peered out at them. An old man with white hair, almost frail looking until you looked closer and saw the strength in the lines of his face, his posture and stance. "Yes? What do you want?"

So much for the pleasantries. "I've come to discuss your future with you," her Doctor replied, indicating the stroller. Susan had fallen asleep.

The Doctor's first self regarded them suspiciously. "Do I know you, young man?"

The Doctor shook his head. "No. But you will, in about six regenerations. Could you do us the courtesy of inviting us in? We've a lot to talk about and it will get rather uncomfortable standing out here while we do it."

Grumbling, the older man stepped back and allowed the door to open fully. "I expect a complete explanation as to what you're doing here, my boy. You know very well that crossing your own time stream is as dangerous as it is illegal."

"Yes, yes, spare me the lecture." The Doctor's current self was as tetchy as his past self; irrationally, this comforted Noni. A little. He breezed through the open door, leaving Noni to negotiate Susan and the rest of her gear.

The entrance hall was narrow and cramped, and the Doctor's first self opened a door to the left that led into a modest study. Noni poked her head in doubtfully, then looked up at him. "Do you have a larger room? Susan's belongings won't fit."

"Susan's belongings don't need to fit," came the tart reply. "Susan's belongings, and Susan herself as I assume the baby to be named, can remain in the hall for all I care, and you with her."

Noni glared at him. "She is your granddaughter." She turned her glare on the Doctor's current self. "You can't be serious about leaving her with him!"

While both Doctors sputtered indignantly, Noni wheeled the stroller around as best she could in the tight quarters. "I am taking her back to the TARDIS, Doctor. You can't leave her here with this beastly old man!"

The Doctor's seventh self reached out and put a gentle but firm hand on her arm, stopping her in her tracks. "So much for easing into the circumstances of our visit," he murmured, but his voice was not unsympathetic. "Noni, please take Susan upstairs, there's a good girl. My first self and I need to arrange a meeting of the minds, and it would be best if we were alone for a few minutes. Helps the concentration."

Noni jerked her arm away from his hold, and with one last glare scooped Susan up in her arms and dragged the lightweight stroller up the stairs behind her. Her very posture radiated outrage, and the two Doctors watched silently until she disappeared from sight.

"Let's get this over with, shall we?" the younger looking man said with a sigh. He indicated the open door of the study, and his older-looking self slowly entered, a gleam of speculation in his eyes.

"This should prove quite interesting," he might have been heard to mutter before the door closed shut behind them.


	2. Tinkering

**oOo**

A light tapping at the door ten minutes later interrupted nothing more than some serious contemplation. Noni entered when she received no response, hesitating only a moment before stepping into the room.

The Doctor's two selves were sitting in identical wing chairs on either side of the small stone fireplace, in identical postures: hands on chins, foreheads furrowed, legs crossed. It would have been comical if the situation weren't so dire.

"Susan is still sleeping," Noni announced. "I put her in the smaller bedroom. The _clean_ one," she added with heavy emphasis. She indicated the open door with a jerk of her head. "I'm leaving this open so I can hear if she wakes up."

"Feisty little thing, isn't she?" The first Doctor's tone was part admiring, part critical.

"Just like her mother," the current Doctor replied placidly.

Another moment passed in silence before his first self spoke again. "Were any of my ideas helpful?"

"Extremely." There was a world of satisfaction in that word, and his first self allowed a smile to swiftly cross his face. Noni rolled her eyes and expelled her breath in an almost inaudible huff of exasperation, but it was enough to catch the old man's attention.

"This habit of picking up hitchhikers and stowaways, how soon does that start?" The note of criticism was harsher now, but the Doctor's seventh self refused to be baited.

"If history is anything to go by, it starts now. By taking Susan and raising her while I search for her parents." He hesitated. "It's the only way to set our past straight."

"Yes, setting it straight." The first Doctor's voice turned meditative. "This business has you tinkering in your own past far too much, dear boy. Do you think that's wise?"

"No. But I think it's necessary." The seventh Doctor had conveyed all the information leading up to this moment in a literal blink of an eye; a larger part of their time together had been spent digesting that information on his first self's part, and contemplating the future on his own part. "I've one last stop to make after this one." He had an appointment with Susan's 10-year-old self, a visit he secretly looked forward to since his own memories of her were still far from complete. "That should be the last, or at least it's the last of the ones I've already discovered I made. Then it's back to my own timeline before I become tempted to make more trips."

"Before you try to save anyone you shouldn't, eh? Alter their destinies, as it were?" the Doctor's first self asked shrewdly.

His counterpart nodded. "Yes." He hesitated, then added: "There are far too many lives the Master has taken that I am very tempted to save. That's why I have to move quickly. Before temptation catches me up in a moment of weakness."

Noni's eyes lit up. "Doctor, why not? The Master was tampering when he did everything he did, wasn't he? So fixing things would just be putting them back the way they're supposed to be!" Her eyes strayed ceilingward, and the Doctor knew exactly what she was thinking.

He shook his head. "No, we are not going to change my past and keep Susan. You have no idea what repercussions that could have."

Noni scowled, looking remarkably like her mother. "So we just leave her. Here. With _him_."

Neither Doctor reacted to the contempt in her voice. "Yes. We do." The one she thought of as "her" Doctor rose to his feet, jamming his hat firmly onto his head. "And we do it now." He looked at his other self, offered a hand which the older man (younger man?) took firmly in his own as he, too, vacated his chair. "Thank you. For everything."

"No need to thank me," the Doctor's first self said brusquely. He nodded at Noni, leaning sullenly against the door. "Just take this young lady off before she does something we all regret. Find our son," he added softly. "And Ace. Even if I never meet her, she's still my granddaughter's mother and therefore very important to me. All of me." The brusqueness returned to his voice as he shooed them toward the front door. "I'll take good care of her, eh? Haven't I already?"

"Yes, you have," the Doctor agreed, taking Noni gently by the elbow and moving her reluctant form out of the house.

"Can't I just say good-bye?" she pleaded, but he shook his head.

"No. No more good-byes. Right now we have to find Ace and Kyris. We've set things back the way they were supposed to be," he added, his tone softening just a touch. "Now its time to figure out where Susan's parents have got themselves off to."


	3. Survivors

**oOo**

"I said, what did you do with the Master?" The tone was belligerent, but overlain by anxiety and something else Ace was in no condition to recognize. "Who are you people?"

Ace struggled toward full consciousness; whatever had knocked her out had done a spectacular job. She rolled onto her side, fighting the nausea that threatened to overcome her as she pushed herself up on her elbows. Once she'd achieved a sitting position she lowered her head so it rested on her knees. "Where are we?" Her voice was muffled, but audible.

"In the Console Room of the Master's TARDIS." The voice sounded less belligerent, more curious and even a little bit hopeful. "Do you know how you got here?"

"We thought it was the Doctor's TARDIS." Ace raised her head as a third voice joined the conversation. "I'm Kyris and that's Ace you've been talking to. We were traveling with him." Ace breathed a sigh of relief. He sounded slightly more alert than she felt. He managed a smile as their eyes met, although he was as pale as she suspected herself to be. "There was a note, we came inside, and then..." His voice trailed off. Ace shook her head slightly, to indicate her own lack of knowledge, then groaned and rested it against her knees again. Whether they'd been hit or drugged or both, she couldn't muster the energy to care. Her head just hurt too damned much. She closed her eyes, taking deep breaths while the Australian woman, a brunette in a short skirt, took up the speculative thread.

"And then the Master did something to you, knocked you out, then headed off somewhere. Leaving you here." There was a considering pause. "I think he expected to be back already, or he'd never have done that. And he definitely wouldn't have let me find you like this."

"Who _are_ you?" Ace mustered the interest to ask as the pain ebbed. At least for the moment. "Were you a prisoner too?"

"Of course, no one's daft enough to be on the Master's TARDIS willingly!" came the sharp reply. "At least, I'm not. My name's Tegan Jovanka, I used to travel with the Doctor--"

Ace looked up, ignoring the residual pain as she stared at the other woman. Kyris was staring at her as well. "Tegan Jovanka is dead," he contradicted flatly. "You can't possibly be her." But there was uncertainty in his voice, and Ace suspected he believed she was who she said she was. In spite of the evidence to the contrary. And if Kyris was doubtful, then that meant it was even more likely she was telling the truth. At least, that she _thought_ she was.

"Dead, eh? Well, that explains why no one's come looking for me."

Ace frowned. There was a certain amount of bravado, of flippancy, almost, in the other woman's voice completely inappropriate to the current situation, but she suspected it was nothing more than a cover up. Ace was the first to admit that she wasn't always the most observant when it came to other people's feelings, but even she could sense the weary hopelessness underlying Tegan's every word. _She's almost given up_, Ace realized. "It's the only reason the Doctor wouldn't have looked for you," she said slowly. "But he'll be looking for us, which means he'll find you as well."

"How did you get here?" Kyris asked as he finally pulled himself to his feet. He reached over to pull Ace up as well; she felt the power flow between them as he negated the lingering effects of being knocked out. She smiled gratefully, then returned her attention to Tegan, neither moving away from Kyris nor letting loose of his hand. Later, when they had some privacy, she'd ask him why his healing powers hadn't saved him from unconsciousness in the first place; she had a vague idea that drugs wouldn't work on him, but knew it was neither the time nor the place to bring that particular subject up.

Tegan was answering Kyris' question. "One minute, I was flying our Cessna, the next..." She shrugged. "I woke up here. Been here ever since. For months, it seems. Hard to judge time in a TARDIS." She smiled, grimly, as if to acknowledge the irony of her words.

"How come we didn't see you when we were on board before?" Ace asked suspiciously. "Kyris was a prisoner here for weeks and weeks."

"Was that him?" Tegan looked at him with renewed interest. "The Master was gloating about someone, but he doesn't exactly share the intimate details of his life with me." There it was again; something she'd said made Tegan's voice shaky, some memory, and Ace knew she wasn't just imagining things. "I knew about another prisoner, but I never saw who it was and I reckon he never saw me. I was still locked up at the time." She snapped her mouth shut and looked away.

"How did you get out?" Kyris was watching Tegan closely. Ace suspected he was sensing the same thing she was, something about Tegan that was a bit...off. She was definitely hiding something.

Tegan's expression turned evasive. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Which makes me want to know the answer even more," Ace shot back, not bothering to temper her suspicion. "Don't tell me you picked the locks."

Tegan crossed her arms and shifted from foot to foot. "What does it matter? I got out. When the Master disappeared, I came here, where I found you lot. End of story."

Kyris caught Ace's arm. "I think the interrogation can wait until we figure out where and when we are, and how to take control of the TARDIS."

"Can't you just work it out?" Ace asked, distracted from her questions. She glanced over at the console. It didn't look any more complicated than the one on the Doctor's TARDIS, at least to her untrained eyes.

Kyris shook his head. "Unfortunately, no. It looks like the Master's made some changes, and quite frankly his TARDIS doesn't like me."

Tegan snorted. "That's a new one. The Doctor's TARDIS may have had a mind of its own, but it was still him that was running things."

"And it's still the Master that's running things here," Kyris said. "Even though he's not on board." He paused. "I still don't understand why he isn't." He looked at Tegan.

She shrugged. "Like I said, I figured you'd done something with him." Her tone conveyed disappointment.

"Yeah, we did something with him, all right: Let him take us captive," Ace muttered. "At least he didn't get Patience...he didn't get her, right?" She grabbed Kyris' arms, panic in her eyes. "If he had her, he'd be here now, right?" She couldn't believe she'd forgotten that her daughter was in danger. _Let Noni still have her, safe, at the house. Please God..._

"I'm sure she's fine," Kyris said soothingly, but he looked as frightened as Ace.

Tegan looked from one to the other. "Who's Patience?"

"Our baby," Kyris replied quietly. "She's almost two months old. She was with us on Gallifrey, staying with Leela and Andred when the Master tricked us onto his TARDIS. Old friends of the Doctor's," he clarified.

"I know who they are," Tegan replied, her expression softening sympathetically. "Kyris is right," she tried to reassure Ace. "If the Master had your baby, he'd be here by now. Gloating."

"But if he doesn't have her, then where is he? Still on Gallifrey? He can't stay there for long, no matter if he gets his hands on her or not," Ace fretted. She looked ready to punch something. "He's an outlaw, it's only a matter of time before someone finds out he's there and does something about it." Her expression turned hopeful. "Maybe that's it; maybe the Doctor or the Gallifreyan authorities got him."

"In which case they'll force him to tell them where we are," Kyris added. "So our best bet is to just sit tight."

"Never my best sport," Ace muttered.

"Mine either," Tegan said wryly. "But it seems that's all I've been doing for months. Sitting tight."

"Everyone thinks you're dead," Kyris reminded her. He frowned. "Even the data retriever," he said slowly. "I don't understand why that didn't work." Apparently he'd decided to believe Tegan was who she claimed to be.

Tegan looked confused. "Data retriever?"

"It's something my mother designed and built," Kyris explained. "Romana's mobile interface for the TARDIS computers was--"

"Romana is your mother?" Tegan interrupted, sounding fascinated. "You're a Time Lord?"

"He's more than that, he's the Doctor's son," Ace put in proudly.

Kyris shrugged, embarrassed, as Tegan gaped at them. "The Doctor and Romana?"

"The retriever was the reason the Master killed her." Kyris paused, and Ace squeezed his hand sympathetically. "She's dead and so are a lot of the Doctor's old companions. That's what started this whole mess; the Master was killing old companions of the Doctor's, one for each regeneration, or so we thought. You being alive sort of puts a damper on that assumption."

"Who else did he kill?" Tegan's voice was barely a whisper, and she'd gone back to clutching her arms to her chest, huddling against herself as if fighting a cold wind.

Kyris recited the list. The death list, he'd always called it. He knew it by heart, and so did Ace. Romana. Jamie McCrimmon. Jo Grant-Jones. Melanie Bush. Almost Sarah Jane Smith.

Tegan listened stoically as Kyris gave a brief synopsis of the Master's murderous rampage. She smiled briefly when she heard that Sarah Jane had survived, but the frown quickly returned to her face. "What about Nyssa and Turlough?" The smile made a brief reappearance as she was reassured as to their continued well being. "So this data whatsis, it's how you found out the Master was killing people? And you used it to check on me?" Kyris nodded. "Did you look for me after the plane crash?"

"Yes, especially because there was no body," Kyris replied. "But the disk refused to show anything more, the way it does when its reached the end of a person's timeline. So we assumed you were dead."

"Unless you really are," Ace pointed out. "Have you made sure you're not an android copy or clone or something?"

"I'm me," Tegan snapped back. "I'm no android, I can promise you that." Her eyes were haunted. "I don't know anything about clones, so I guess that's possible, but what difference would it make? I mean, I remember everything about my own life, so if I've been killed and replaced with an exact duplicate, would it really matter? Maybe the Master just found some way to block the scans from your mother's retriever thing. Is that possible?"

Kyris nodded reluctantly. "Yes, I suppose it is. Was there anything special about the room you were being kept in?"

Tegan closed her eyes. "It wasn't one of the regular rooms, more like an actual cell. All metal walls and floor and, yes, even the ceiling." She opened her eyes again. "Except for the bed, that was the only thing in the room that wasn't metal. Big, bloody comfortable thing..." Her voice trailed off as her gaze turned inward.

"Well, even if the room was shielded, my father was still able to track us so that means the TARDIS itself isn't." Kyris' eyes lit up. "Of course, he must be tracking us now! Even if the Master refuses to tell anyone where we are, the Doctor will still be able to find us." He glanced down at the TARDIS console, stubbornly frozen in place, and gently disengaged his hand from Ace's. "In the meantime, I think I'd like to work on this, maybe I can get it to at least send out a beacon or distress call or something." He frowned and crouched down, tilting his head to look sideways at some equipment attached to the underside of the console. "Now I wonder what this does..." he murmured.

"Well, he's off in techno-land now," Ace pronounced. She leaned down and kissed the top of his head. He reached up and patted her hand in a distracted manner, then returned to muttering to himself. Ace turned to Tegan. "Why don't you show me where you were being kept prisoner, in case there's something I can figure out about it." _And why don't I get you to tell me why you're not still locked up, _she thought grimly as Tegan moved toward the inner door. _Because if you're working with that bastard, I'll make you wish you really were dead._


	4. Arguing

**oOo**

The Doctor could feel, almost physically,the heat of Noni's glare on his back as they walked to the TARDIS. He steadfastly refused to look back, not only because he didn't want to see the no doubt murderous expression on her face, but also because he knew it would be his undoing. Leaving Susan with his first self, Noni's beliefs to the contrary, was the second hardest thing he'd ever done, in any of his lives.

Maybe even the first.

He stopped himself from shaking his head; any such movement on his part would be interpreted by Noni as a sign of hesitation, and she'd be off like a shot, back to the house and no doubt demanding Susan at the top of her lungs. "Focus, Doctor," he muttered, _sotto voce_. Risky, but safer than actual movement.

Noni dragged her feet, looking over her shoulder every few steps, then returning her resentful gaze to the exact middle of the Doctor's neck. It should be itching like mad by now, but he showed no signs that he even noticed. Or cared. She glanced back yet again, then turned and yelped with surprise and outrage as she nearly slammed into the Doctor, who'd stopped and was staring straight ahead, mumbling something that sounded like equations. "Doctor!"

It took a determined tug on his shoulder before his gaze returned from the middle distance, snapping onto her as if he'd suddenly remembered her presence only after deep reflection. "Noni? Yes? What is it?"

"You stopped, and now you're talking to yourself. Have you changed your mind?" She stepped away from him, backwards a step or two. Toward Susan.

The Doctor reached out and snagged her wrist. "No. I haven't. I've just been trying to work some things out. Calculations."

"To help us find Ace and Kyris?" He nodded, and Noni shook her hand loose from his grasp, falling into step beside him as he began walking again, more rapidly this time. "Is it something I could help you with? I want to, you know. Help." Her voice turned, not pleading exactly, but there was a catch in it, and the Doctor recognized it as a sign of how deeply leaving Susan had affected her.

He glanced at her sideways. "How can you help when I'm about to bring you home, hmm?" Before she could answer or object, he sighed. "Well, that was the original plan. However." He cleared his throat, and Noni's heart leapt with hope as he turned his head and looked her in the eyes. "I realize that, short of physically wrestling you off the TARDIS and into your parent's arms, I am unlikely to be able to do so. Don't think I don't realize why you let Susan go to my first self without a struggle." He wagged a finger under her nose, and her earlier glare returned.

"What do you mean, without a struggle?" she demanded, catching his arm and forcing him to stop. "I've been arguing with you about this since we landed. Since _before_ we landed."

The Doctor gave a sardonic laugh and gazed up at the tree-tops. "Yes, arguing. When I fully expected you to take Susan and hide in the depths of the TARDIS, from which I would be forced to extract you, kicking and screaming." He looked down sharply. "No, I can tell when someone is merely biding their time. You hope we'll be able to find Kyris and Ace quickly, and be able to take Susan back to them. And you intend to help me in that endeavor, whether I want you to or not. To which end you will do anything. Up to and including, if I'm not mistaken, stealing another TARDIS and looking for them on your own if I did leave you on Gallifrey."

Noni's silence was more eloquent than protests of innocence he never would have believed anyway. "Therefore, I will, reluctantly, allow you to remain with me. So I can at least monitor your activities. It is not a solution I feel your parents would approve of, at least not your father, but under the circumstances, it would appear to be the best compromise." He looked at her again, directly. "I presume hypnotism will not work on you, hmm?" She shook her head. Her cheeks were pink, but she refused to lower her gaze. "Very well then." He started walking again, setting a brisk pace and jiggling the TARDIS key in his hand.

Noni stuck her tongue out at him, then increased her own speed as the TARDIS came into view. She was grateful that he was willing to keep her on, and she certainly wasn't about to tell him that stealing a TARDIS of her own had never occurred to her; she'd simply intended to use Kyris' key and sneak back aboard, after recruiting her younger siblings into creating a distraction for her. But it was something to keep in the back of her mind, should the need ever arise in the future.

The door closed behind them, and Noni found her gaze immediately drawn to the now-empty cradle, still sitting by the interior door. The Doctor was ignoring it as he moved straight to the console and began entering a sequence of numbers into one of the memory ports. He scowled, gazed ceilingward, then made an "ah-ha!" noise and went back to entering the numbers.

Eventually Noni couldn't take it any longer. She moved forward and snatched up the cradle, holding it awkwardly in her arms. "I'm putting this back in Susan's room," she announced, her tone brooking no argument. "She'll need it later." Then she disappeared through the door, slamming it behind her.

The Doctor sighed. This was not going to be easy; Noni had no intention of making it easy. His goal was to find Kyris and Ace, although he suspected it was a lost cause. Nothing short of permanently being lost on the Master's TARDIS could keep his son and Ace from their daughter. His lips thinned. He refused to believe the alternative, that they were dead or would be before he found them. Instead, he returned his attention to the console. There was a great deal of work to do.


	5. Disappointment

**oOo**

It took Noni almost a full hour to return to the Console Room, feet dragging, but she saw the Time Rotor raising and lowering itself and knew they were on their way. The question was, as always, where? She voiced it aloud. "Where are we off to now, Doctor?"

Before he could answer, a light began flashing near the edge of the console. "What's that?"

"That, my dear, is what you might call a very good sign," the Doctor beamed. "That light tells me we're on the right track. Some of the coordinates my first self reminded me of could be very useful. Very useful indeed."

"Coordinates for where?" There was cautious hope in Noni's voice, and he could tell she was struggling to keep herself under control. Very impressive; he saw so much of her mother in her that he was always surprised when she managed to control both her temper and her impulses.

"Some of the places the Master used to hide out not long after we were in school together, places I hadn't thought of in, well, quite a long time. But my past self and the Master were school-mates much more recently than he and I were, and if I'm reading this correctly, then his TARDIS has been at one of the locations, and not too long ago." He grinned jubilantly. "If I'd just thought of this sooner, I'd have found him when Kyris and I were first hunting him down!" The grin faded. "It's a shame what regenerative trauma can do to one; try to avoid it, my dear."

"That'll be easy, since I'll never be a Time Lord," Noni said, matter-of-factly.

That pulled the Doctor up short. "No, I suppose you won't," he agreed. Noni's mixed heritage all but guaranteed she'd never be accepted into the Academy, although that hadn't stopped others in the distant past. Nor was attendance there mandatory; Kyris had been taught by Romana, but his talent as a Healer had made it inevitable that he would follow in his parents' footsteps. At least he was fully Gallifreyan. Even so, Noni's genetics shouldn't stop her from becoming a Time Lady if she so desired, but he hadn't really thought about it before, and he should have, shouldn't he? After all, his own granddaughter was half-human, too.

Of course, Susan had never expressed a desire to learn how to regenerate, to earn the title Time Lady, although she was half-way there just by traveling with him all her life. At least, he didn't think she had; his memory was still too damned spotty for him to be sure of anything pertaining to her early life. Certainly by the time she left him she'd made it crystal clear that settling down and finding happiness were more important to her than flitting about the known universe in search of adventure like her more restless grandfather. Oh, it had been fine whilst growing up, but love, ever elusive, had finally found her and he had been fortunate enough to recognize it and send her off to the life she deserved to live.

Noni brought him back to the present with a practical question. "I thought you still had to see Susan when she was a young girl, isn't that where we should go first?" All her instincts were screaming at her to follow the Master's trail before it went cold, but the practical side of her remembered that putting things off, even while in a TARDIS, could have disastrous effects.

"You're absolutely right," the Doctor agreed. "Susan first, then the Master's TARDIS and our missing family members."

Noni started to turn away, then looked back at him, pausing in mid-step. "Have you checked on them lately, seen how they're doing?"

It was the question he'd been hoping to avoid, the one he wanted least to answer. But answer it he did, unflinchingly. "I'm afraid that's impossible."

Suspicion grew on Noni's face, quickly flowering into shocked disbelief. "Doctor, has something happened to Romana's tracking device?"

"It wasn't just a tracking device," the Doctor mumbled, answering and not-answering her. In the past tense.

"Oh Doctor!" Noni cried, real despair in her voice. "How will we know if they're still alive?"

"Because they are," the Doctor snapped. He turned away from her. "If the Master just wanted to kill them, he'd have done so instead of simply sending them off in his TARDIS. He said they were alive when he had you and Susan captive, remember? And if they were alive then, they're alive now."

"But what happened to it?" There were tears in Noni's eyes, tears that reminded him how young she was. There was a great deal of Leela in her, but she'd grown up in a far kinder environment than her mother, and tears that Leela would never have shed came more easily to her daughter.

"I was attempting to modify it." He turned around again, reluctantly, reaching into a pocket and extracting a small handful of metal shards. "Apparently Romana had it booby-trapped. Probably after the Master tried to steal it the first time."

Noni stood, unmoving, doing her best to process this piece of information while the Doctor remained, equally still, next to the Console. "So all we have to go on now is this hint your first self gave you? To check out the Master's old hiding places?" He nodded, and she strode over to his side and shook him, literally grabbed the lapels of his coat in both hands and shook him. "That's not good enough. You have to go back, back to before my mother killed him. You have to make him tell us where they are!"

The Doctor gently pulled her hands away and held them down at her sides. There were more tears glittering in her eyes, tears as much of frustration as anger, tears he knew she would never allow to spill. "Noni." His voice was quiet. "In spite of what you've seen me doing lately, crossing my own time stream and such, I cannot and will not cross the Master's. I cannot go back and try to change what's already happened. It's too dangerous."

"Dangerous for who? For us?" She yanked her wrists from his grasp; she seemed to be doing that a lot, lately. "I don't care!"

"But I do." The Doctor's tone was implacable, and his gaze had gone steely. "It's not just dangerous for us, Noni. It's dangerous for everyone. There are things that you don't know about traveling through time, about interfering with the proper order, things I can't begin to explain to you. You'll just have to accept that I can't do what you're asking."

"Then you don't really want to find them at all." Her voice was as cold as his, but he refused to allow the devastation he felt to show on his face. She'd lost faith in him, and he wasn't sure there was anything he could do to restore it.

He watched as she walked away from him, shoulders slumped in defeat, and sternly repressed a twinge of guilt. He wanted desperately to do exactly what she wanted, but it was more complicated than that. "I'll let you know when we've arrived," was all he said.

She didn't turn, didn't acknowledge his words in any way, simply opened the interior door and disappeared from view.


	6. Gallifreyan Retreat

**Interlude: Gallifrey**

"I thought she'd be back by now."

Leela looked up. She was sitting on the ground, polishing her daggers. She was holding her favorite, the best balanced of the lot, while the others were carefully laid out on the ground before her in a neatly regimented half-circle. "She may not have shown herself to the Doctor yet."

She didn't ask how he'd found her, when she'd deliberately gone out of her way to avoid everyone today. The children were at lessons, Andred had been on duty, or so she thought, and she hadn't told anyone where she intended to spend the afternoon.

Not that it was particularly difficult to figure out, since this was one of favorite spots. She'd come here, to this neglected jumble of fallen columns and half-destroyed stone walls at the farthest ends of Andred's family property, ever since the earliest days of her marriage. Whenever she felt the need to be alone, whenever the civilized confines of Gallifrey began to weigh on her, she came here. Once Noni was born, she'd ceased her perambulations into the wilder parts of her adopted planet, recognizing that motherhood precluded putting herself deliberately into harm's way, at least without some dire need prompting it.

Andred squatted down in front of her, long habit automatically keeping his boots from disturbing the deadly, gleaming arc of metal. "Come on, Leela, we both know better than that. Even if he didn't know she was there when he left, it wouldn't have taken him long to discover her. There's no way she could stay away from the baby."

"She has become too attached. If I had known this would happen, I would never have allowed her to spend so much time with Susan."

Andred reached out and caught his wife's hand gently in his. She was scowling, her knuckles white as she unconsciously clutched her knife tighter. "You don't mean that. Besides, short of turning them away at the very beginning, there was no way of keeping her from befriending Kyris and Ace, from growing to love their daughter."

Leela lowered her head, allowing her hair to fall forward and hide her face. But only for a moment; Andred smiled as she abruptly straightened and looked at him. "That is true. But I still wish--"

"You wish she hadn't stowed away on the TARDIS," Andred interrupted, bringing her fist up to his lips and gently kissing her knuckles until she reluctantly loosened her grip on the knife. He pulled it from her unresisting fingers and placed it carefully on the ground with the others. "A wish I share. But I also know you blame yourself. And you shouldn't."

"Why should I not?" Leela's eyes flashed angrily. "I killed the Master without thinking, as if I were still that savage child of the Sevateen. As if I hadn't lived half my life on Gallifrey, as if I'd never traveled with the Doctor and learned to temper my responses--" She went silent only because Andred leaned forward and kissed her. When he pulled back she tried to speak again, and he silenced her with the same method. The second time she returned the kiss with a little more enthusiasm, relaxing in his embrace if only for a little while. Fear had become a part of her life once again, only this time it was concern for another rather than herself that caused it to flow through her veins.

"Noni and Susan were in danger," Andred whispered against her lips when it was obvious she was permitting his kisses to have the desired effect. "You reacted as any mother would, to protect her child. I doubt if I'd have done anything differently had it been me." He sat back on his haunches and eyed her collection of knives. "Well, perhaps one thing..."

A reluctant smile played against her lips. "You are far better with guns than knives," she agreed gravely. Every one of her children, with the exception of their youngest daughter, Mia, who was still a toddler, could throw better than their father, a fact he cheerfully admitted.

"So what should we do now?" Andred was still worried; Noni was still missing, and reassurances to his wife notwithstanding, he also wished the Master was still alive. Because if he were, Noni would be there with them, right now. Along with Kyris and Ace and, perhaps, the Doctor.

"We wait." Leela began returning the knives to their cases, meticulously replacing each in its spot. "The Doctor will not allow any harm to come to her." Her voice turned grim. "He knows he would have to answer to me if it did." She placed two of the knives into her belt sheathes, tucked two into her boot tops and closed the covers on the cases before picking them up and rising smoothly to her feet. "Besides, it is my belief that he has decided to bring her with him to find his family."

"What? Why would he do that?" Andred was startled; he hadn't thought of that possibility, that the Doctor would keep Noni with him for longer than the time required to return to Gallifrey.

"Because he knows our daughter, what she is capable of. Tell me, Andred; were I the one to have gone into the TARDIS without the Doctor's knowledge, what would be the first thing I would do if he sent me home?"

Andred stared at her. Gallifrey's sun was setting, lending a golden glow to her outline, leaving her face in shadow, but he could feel her gaze upon him as he considered her question. "You would find a way to follow him," he finally said. "Barring that, you'd find a way to look for Ace and Kyris yourself. If you wanted something that badly, you'd go after it."

"And Noni is much like me." Leela handed him one of the knife cases. He took it automatically as she slipped her free hand into his and tugged him gently toward the house. It was a long walk back from this spot. It lay beyond the gardens and paths that extended for many acres around their home, these ruins of a long-abandoned residence Andred's family hadn't bothered to clear. It was this un-Gallifreyan tendency toward disorder that was part of the attraction she felt for him, at least initially, before she'd managed to look past her confused feelings for the Doctor and admit that she'd instinctively chosen the right man to spend the remainder of her life with.

"She's a bit too much like you," Andred mumbled, but he squeezed his wife's hand affectionately. "Which means, I suppose, that she'll thrive on this sort of adventure."

"And return home with many stories to share with an envious audience of younger brothers and sisters," Leela agreed with a smile. "I trust the Doctor. He will return her to us safely." She met his gaze, lips thinned. "May the Gods help him if he does not. Because he will have me to answer to."

"That's my girl," Andred murmured, pulling her closer for another kiss.


	7. Boxed In

**oOo**

The room was exactly as Tegan had described it, essentially a large metal cage plunked into the middle of the Master's TARDIS. "Cozy, eh?" was all Ace said as she looked around. There wasn't much to see, but she closely examined the metal walls, floor, and ceiling, broken only by the metal door into the corridor and another door, smaller, half-open and offering a glimpse of a spartan lav also done up in metal. Must have been a right treat, sitting down on that particular bathroom necessity...

Then there was the bed. Ace looked it over, taken aback by the sheer size of the thing. It dominated the room, with its plump pillows, mounds of white comforters over equally white sheets and blankets. King sized, Ace guessed, with a simple but sturdy looking headboard pressed against the wall opposite the door, almost too tall to climb into. It looked like the Master, always one to outdo everyone else, had pinched it from a posh hotel the way others would nick the towels or robes. It looked more comfortable than any bed Ace had ever slept in, and she noted the way Tegan avoided looking at it just as she carefully noted every other detail about the place.

The metal; there had to be a reason for it, more than just intimidation. The Master had no worries about keeping Kyris in a normal room, so it wasn't just his special place for prisoners. And if there were something about it that specifically warded off Romana's machine, then he'd apparently been unconcerned if the Doctor watched his son being held prisoner...but didn't want the other Time Lord to know about his other captive.

Which brought her back to Tegan. Kyris seemed inclined to trust her, and his instincts were generally sound, but there had to be a reason the Master wanted her not only alive, but impervious to detection. "It's got to be in the metal," Ace muttered, peering closely at the door jamb, but not touching it. She'd have Kyris check it out later. Maybe there were scans they could do, if the TARDIS allowed them access to any equipment; most of the doors Ace had idly tried on their way here were locked.

"Seen enough?" Tegan had grown increasingly restless, and there was a haunted quality to her eyes. Something had obviously happened in this room, beyond the mere fact of her captivity, and Ace was determined to get to the bottom of it. It wasn't prying, she told herself. Any information could be useful, anything Tegan could tell her might lead Ace back to her daughter.

"Enough to know that this," she nodded at the metal box, "isn't the end of the story. Is it."

"I'm not working with the Master." Tegan's voice was defiant, laced with panic but as honest as anything Ace had ever heard. "You can't possibly believe that, not after what he--"

"What? After he what?" Ace deliberately pushed the door open wider, slamming it back with a harsh metallic "clank" against the interior wall. Tegan flinched, her eyes involuntarily finding the bed. "He held you captive, I get that, but there's more, and I need to know." She grabbed the other woman's arms and shook her. "It could be important, it could be what I need to know to save my daughter!" Her voice rose with the last words, and Tegan wrenched herself away, away from Ace and away from the door.

"It has nothing to do with your daughter!" Tegan's voice was higher, sharper as she backed up against the opposite wall, unable to remove her gaze from the room that held such hideous memories for her. She'd thought she was over it, that she'd dealt with it, but on the way here, bringing Ace, she felt the queasiness start, the alternating flashes of hot and cold, the panic battering at her mind, and had almost sent the girl on ahead without her. But Tegan Jovanka was no coward; the one time she'd tried running away, it had been an unmitigated disaster.

"You don't know that." Ace's voice had gone back to its normal pitch, but still filled with desperation. "We don't know what's important and what isn't. We don't bloody well know anything!" She punched the wall in frustration, scraping her knuckles raw. She ignored the blood and focused on Tegan. A small part of her knew she was badgering the woman, perhaps needlessly, but the rest of her was filled with frustrated rage. The Master wasn't there, and Tegan was. It was as simple as that.

Tegan stared at her, at this young girl, at the fear and anger manifested on her face, stared at her and knew, deep in her bones, that she would not give up until she'd learned what she wanted to know. Even though, Tegan knew, the telling would do nothing in her search for her child. With a half-gasp, half-sob, Tegan spoke.


	8. Confessions

"He raped me." The words came out in a harsh rasp. "Happy now? He raped me, then told me I was free to go anywhere I wanted on the TARDIS. Anywhere it would let me, which was bloody few places, I can tell you that. There are more locked doors on this machine than in Bluebeard's castle."

Ace's horrified expression spoke volumes, but before she could utter any of the apologies that were brimming behind her lips, Tegan shook her head violently. "Don't. Don't say anything, don't tell me you're sorry." Her voice was harsh, the threat of tears clogging her throat. "The only one who owes me those words isn't here, and I wouldn't accept them from him even if the bastard were capable of saying them and meaning it."

She drew a ragged breath, the words spilling out of her as if she couldn't stop now that she'd started. "He left me locked up for months, just bringing me food and taunting me about the Doctor never coming to my rescue. Then suddenly he bursts into my room in the middle of the night and puts his filthy hands on my body, kissing me hard enough to bruise and leaving me bleeding when he was finished. The next day he acted as if nothing had happened. The only difference was he let me out of that cage. Like he knew he had nothing to fear from me," she finished, her voice barely a whisper, eyes wide with remembered horror and self-loathing.

"It's not your fault," Ace began clumsily, but Tegan rounded on her, her expression so fierce that Ace actually took a step backwards.

"I know that, but it doesn't make me feel any less dirty," Tegan spat out, clutching her arms to her chest in that familiar defensive motion. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. "When he left, he kissed me on the forehead, gently, then smiled and walked out. I wanted to kill him."

"If I have my way, you'll get your chance," Ace replied grimly. "He's done damage to us all, and he's going to pay. One way or another." She hesitated. "My daughter's name, I call her Patience but you ought to know, it's really Susan. That's the one she's going to grow up with. The one she did grow up with." It was hardly penance, but she felt compelled to offer something to Tegan for her honesty. A painful truth for a painful truth.

Tegan turned toward her, frowning. "Susan? Not the one I met, surely? The Doctor's..." She stopped, but Ace finished the sentence for her.

"The Doctor's granddaughter, yes, that Susan." Her voice was level, but to Tegan's eyes her face aged a decade as she spoke. "The one who grows up with the Doctor's first self. Without her parents." She fell silent, holding Tegan's horrified gaze with her own. "So there's enough pain the Master's dealt to go around." Deliberately she crossed the corridor and reached into the room, quietly pulling the door closed. "And I _will_ say I'm sorry. I had no right to interrogate you like that."

"It was bound to come out, sooner or later," the other woman replied, but listlessly, as if she'd spent all her emotions and had nothing left to give. "If only after we find the Master; it's just the sort of thing he'd love to taunt me about, to boast about. To shove in the Doctor's face." She pushed away from thewall with an abrupt movement andheaded down the corridor. "There's plenty of rooms with nothing in them but bedroom furniture. You and Kyris can take your pick. I'll be around, if you need me." Ace watched until she disappeared around the bend.

"Dorothy McShane, you can be a right bitch when you want to," she muttered to herself. Nursing her injured hand, she headed back for the Console Room and the comfort of Kyris' presence.

**oOo**

She found him, as expected, deep in thought beneath the console. Wires dangled, circuit boards were piled haphazardly, and she watched as he yanked out some other piece of unidentifiable machinery. "Can you put it all back?"

He looked up at her, unsurprised by her presence, dusted off his hands and jumped to his feet. "Don't need to," he pronounced, eyeing the pile with disgust. "It's all a dummy, a fake. Even this." He pointed to the anomalous piece of equipment attached beneath the console, the one he'd secretly pinned his hopes on. "Whatever powers this TARDIS, it isn't what normally powers a TARDIS. Nothing I've touched has had any affect on things one way or another."

"Great."

He glanced at her more closely, saw the bleeding knuckles and raised them to his lips for a kiss. When he lowered her hand, it was completely healed, but her eyes remained troubled. "Penny for your thoughts?"

"Not here." Ace almost shuddered, but caught herself. "I can feel _him_ here, mocking us. No wonder he left us in the Console Room, no wonder he didn't bother locking us up, if we can't get control of this bloody pile of scrap!" Her scowl grew, and Kyris pulled her into his arms for a hug that she returned almost to the point of strangling him.

"So where should we go? Where's Tegan?" he added, glancing around the room. "Is she all right?"

Ace suddenly looked uncomfortable. "I saw where he was keeping her," was her evasive non-answer. "Maybe you can figure something out from it, but I couldn't. Except it's not a place I'd like to stay for months on end." This time she allowed the shudder, couldn't stop it even if she tried, and Kyris' frown deepened. "Tegan said there were lots of rooms we could pick from to stay in. Since it appears we'll be here a while." There was defeat in her voice, something he'd never heard before. Not to this extent. He didn't like it.

"That sounds fine, as long as it doesn't turn out to be the one I stayed in last time I was a 'guest' of the Master," Kyris replied, trying for lightness but knowing his effort to be futile. Ace was in a black mood, blacker than when she'd left with Tegan, and he was almost afraid to find out why.

"Come on, then," was all she said, tugging at his arm and practically dragging him out of the Console Room.

Once the door closed behind them, a sound very much like a chuckle came from the area of the console. Untouched by anyone, the controls reset themselves, and the Time Rotor began to rise and fall as the TARDIS dematerialized. As Kyris had surmised, none of the usual equipment was powering its movement.


	9. Breathing Exercises

**oOo**

Tegan looked up sharply. She'd grown attuned to the Master's TARDIS, to its rhythms and subtle movements. She'd had little other to do than study her environment while locked up, at least for the first subjective month or so. She was certain that Kyris, Doctor's son or no, hadn't been able to untangle the riddle of this particular TARDIS, not so quickly. Which meant, as usual, that it was going somewhere the Master wanted it to. "Just like the rest of us," she muttered to herself darkly.

She'd been dancing to the Master's tune since he "rescued" her from the plane he himself had caused to explode. Since the moment she'd regained consciousness, dazed and disoriented, in that hateful metal cage, not knowing what had happened or where she was, until _he_ walked in...

"_I should have known it was you. I'm not even traveling with the Doctor anymore; what d'you want with me?" The best defense was a good offense, she'd heard that somewhere and had taken it to heart from an early age._

"_My dear Miss Jovanka. Tegan. Surely your own company is enough of a reason for me to seek you out?" He was mocking her, standing there in his usual black velvet, in his stolen body and his attitude of smug superiority. She restrained a sudden urge to slap him._

"_Right. And rabbits can fly."_

"_On Derizani VII they do." Oh, he was quick with the witticisms today, she'd give him that much. Grudgingly. The only way she'd ever give him anything._

"_Swell. I'll file that away under useless crap I'll never need," she'd shot back, running on sheer bravado. "So what am I _really_ doing here?" Surreptitiously she ran her damp palms along the edges of her green wool skirt. She was still wearing her flight jacket, and quickly jammed her hands into her pockets to give them something to do besides twitch nervously. _

"_Insurance." She blinked, not having expected an honest answer. "I have set certain events in motion, events that I intend to bring me a great deal of profit, but in case something fails to go as planned--"_

"_Like every other time you've gone up against him?" Now was probably not the best time to shoot her mouth off, but she couldn't resist. He scowled, and she smiled sweetly at him. Score one for the mouth on legs._

"_This time will be different. Very different." He seemed to be savoring the words, as well as the uncertainty that appeared on her face. "I've already dealt him some very bad blows, even if he is unaware of them as of yet. Your disappearance plays its own part in the little drama I'm producing, although I don't expect you to appreciate it."_

"_You blew up my plane," she pointed out with a glare. "You've taken me prisoner and put me in a bloody great metal cage. Appreciation is the _last_ emotion I'm feeling."_

He'd smiled, that was all, smiled and left the room, the door clanging shut behind him. The next few months had passed exactly as she'd described for Ace, that ruthless young woman with her own share of tragedy in her life. Tegan had never intended to tell anyone what the Master had done to her, but there was something about Ace, a certain implacability about her that let Tegan know, stubborn as she'd always been, that she'd met her match. Knowing that the Master had separated them from their baby explained the other woman's desperation, but she had the impression that Ace was one to have her way under the best of circumstances.

She'd almost been relieved to tell, Tegan had to admit as she continued aimlessly down the corridors. She knew where she wanted to go; the one kitchen on the TARDIS that worked, even if the food on hand wasn't always recognizable. She hadn't bothered to memorize the way, since the Master's TARDIS was prone to reconfiguring itself it at random. It had taken a while, but she'd learned to ignore this particular tactic, to react stoically no matter how long it took her to reach her destination. In the first week after the Master let her wander on her own, she'd been reduced to near-tears on more than one occasion when the corridor she'd sworn she'd used before brought her instead back to the metal cage. Her former prison.

She discovered she was shaking, and stood for a minute, leaning against the wall and willing herself to stop, breathing deeply with her eyes closed and fists clenched. She wasn't locked up, not the way she had been. She wasn't alone, either, and there was a great deal of comfort in that. And the Master hadn't touched her again. Not once. Instead, he'd ignored her, the few times their paths had accidentally crossed. Even when he caught her trying to work the console, all he'd done was smile and wait for her to realize nothing was going to happen. Not for her. She'd thought about hitting him, about creeping up on him and knocking him unconscious and letting him wake up in that damned metal room, but something told her such efforts would be futile, and so she'd never tried. Now she wished she had; it might not have done her any good, but it might have kept him from destroying Ace and Kyris' lives.

"Stop second guessing yourself, Tegan Jovanka," she scolded herself. That way led madness. Second guessing and wishful thinking wouldn't change anything that had happened. She still couldn't control the TARDIS, she still hadn't been able to keep him from violating her...

She pushed away from the wall and began walking, faster and faster, as if she could outpace her thoughts. Her memories. The ones that crept up on her unawares, just like he had, appearing out of nowhere on the first night she'd actually managed to fall asleep without nightmares.

_It was dark, and as she struggled toward consciousness she sensed a presence in that darkness. Where was she? She remembered. The bed, so warm and comfortable, the only thing in the room not made of metal, but tonight it felt like a trap, luring her back to sleep when something had woken her up, some sense of something wrong._

_She started to sit up, letting out a startled scream as she suddenly felt hands shoving her back down. _His_ hands. Gloved, ungentle, pressing into her shoulders but not bothering to cover her mouth. In space, no one could hear her scream. And so she stopped, perversely determined not to let him hear her, either._

She hadn't been completely honest with Ace, hadn't told her everything that happened. The things she hadn't wanted to remember, had willfully suppressed. Until now. She stopped walking, unaware that she now stood, frozen, unable to move as the memories flooded over her, ghastly and intense, as if it were happening all over again...

"_My dear Tegan, do feel free to express yourself. I apologize for startling you." His hold eased, but she remained prone, staring up at where his face should be. It was completely black in the room, no light at all. It was an all-or-nothing kind of jail, this metal box; either it was almost too bright for comfort or it was pitch black._

_She refused to ask what he wanted, assuming he had come to tell her something, or perhaps to drag her out to the Console Room, to parade her before the view screen, showing off his prisoner and attempting to threaten the Doctor into doing his bidding._

_He did neither of those things. Instead, he suddenly leaned down and kissed her._

_Too late she realized her mistake; she should have immediately come to her feet when he first made his presence known. Panicked, she turned her head away, shoving at him and scrambling from beneath the covers, or trying to. Her legs became tangled in the sheets; cursing, she tried to yank them free only to feel the weight of the Master's body fully on hers. Forcing her back down._

"_Why are you doing this?" The words came, unbidden, gasped out as she tried with all her might to shove him off her and onto the floor, as her legs thrashed and arms strained against his dead weight. To no avail._

"_Insurance," was all he said._

She still didn't know what he'd meant by that, nearly two months later. Insurance. Insuring her cooperation? Her fear of him? Her understanding that he would do anything in his quest for revenge against the Doctor? She'd never asked, not that night nor any other, and so the only thing he'd ensured was her continued lack of understanding. And perhaps that was enough for him.

But that hadn't been his last words to her. And it was the words that followed, the words burned into her consciousness, that she wanted most to forget. And knew she never would.

"_I may not be the Time Lord you've yearned for, but I'm the only one who will ever have you. Even if he wanted you the way you wanted him, he would never act on that desire. He would never dream of forging a romantic relationship with someone whose life is as brief , as ephemeral as that of a mere human."_

Hurtful, hateful, those words. But ringing with truth to her ears, then and now. Hadn't she seen the truth of them with her own eyes, when she was introduced to the Doctor's son? Kyris, living proof that only another Gallifreyan, a Time Lady, could catch the Doctor's attention in that particular way. Unbidden, a sob escaped her throat.

"_You ached for him, I could see it in your eyes every time we met." He was poised to enter her, had knocked her nearly unconscious when her struggles ceased to amuse him. Yet he felt compelled to pause, to draw things out as he lectured her, as he taunted her about her feelings for the Doctor. "You wish it was him, don't you, that he was the one who found you attractive and who acted on that attraction. But here we are, you and I. Now I have something the Doctor never will." With those final, taunting words, he plunged downward, and a scream was forced out of her in spite of her intentions to the contrary. _

She hadn't been able to stop him, but she'd done her damndest, fury at his words giving her a strength she'd never expected. But it still wasn't enough, not enough to stop him. He had scratches on his cheek the next time she saw him, and probably a few bruises as well. She'd been left with a black eye, with a swollen lip and broken fingernails, with numerous cuts and contusions, with abdominal pain and bleeding that left her unable to walk for most of a day. And a spot on her forehead that burned, at least in her mind, a spot where he had kissed her as gently as her mother ever had at bedtime when she was a child.

The door remained open after he left, taunting her with the light from the corridor, but she'd been unable to move. The bed was the only thing anchoring her to reality, and she clutched the coverlet tightly until the pain finally ebbed, long after the lights in the room had come on, signaling the beginning of the TARDIS-mandated "day."

Until Ace and Kyris arrived, she hadn't returned to that room voluntarily. She sank to her knees, shuddering violently, clutching her arms around herself and keening her sorrow, finally giving in to the flood of tears. The tears that she'd held inside for too long.

**oOo**

"So what happened?" Kyris was sitting on the edge of the bed, and he reached up to Ace, who took his hand and reluctantly joined him, glancing around as she did.

They'd found a room, possibly the one Ace had been held in during her previous tenure as the Master's prisoner, but it didn't make her uncomfortable, the thought of inhabiting the same room, so she didn't mention its familiarity to Kyris. It was enough that it was different from the room he'd been held in, the bed larger, the bathroom off a small corridor lined with shelves and closet space instead of opening directly into the main room. There was a small sofa and table along the far wall, even a shelf of books along the foot of the bed. None of the titles Ace had glanced at were familiar, and she suspected them of being from worlds other than Earth.

The truth was, she didn't want to answer Kyris' question. What had happened to Tegan, what the Master had done, was horrific, and the way Ace had found out didn't exactly show her in her best light. But she knew, despite her discomfort, that he needed to know. Everything. "The Master's done more than just keep her here..." She paused, uncertain how to continue, and Kyris jumped in.

"Torture, eh?" His voice turned grim. "Perhaps I'd better have a look at her. She looks a bit undernourished and tired, but I didn't get the chance to touch her to get a handle on her condition..."

"He raped her." She blurted it out, unable to keep it to herself any longer. Unable to hide the horror she felt, the outrage that the Master was capable of so vile an act. Murder, yes, that she'd seen on too many occasions, but rape seemed...beneath him. Undignified. It unsettled her, she admitted, to discover that she didn't know him as well as she'd believed. And to underestimate an enemy was dangerous. Unforgivably so.

Kyris went very still. When he spoke, his voice was taut with restrained fury, and Ace saw that his hands were shaking. She reached over and held them in her own. They were cold. _So are mine._ "I hope my father kills that son of a bitch." He didn't ask the question she thought he would: _Why_? She hadn't asked either, but suspected if she had Tegan would have been unable to answer any more than she could. The Master's rationales remained murky under the best of circumstances. Control, she supposed, or punishment. Or both. Ace had always been taught that rape was about power, not sex, and that was definitely what the Master was all about. Power.

"So do I. So do a lot of people," Ace replied. She drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly. It did nothing to calm her, but it did help to have something to focus on. Deep breaths. In, out.

Kyris squeezed her hand, knowing instinctively where her thoughts had landed. "We have to believe Patience is safe," he began.

"Don't call her that!" Furious, Ace jumped to her feet. So much for breathing. "We can't call her that any more, don't you see?" Kyris stared. Ace was crying, tears streaming down her cheeks, hiccupping between each word. "She's not our Patience any more. She's Susan now. This is it, this is how we lose her! We're here, and the Doctor's going to take her to his first self." Her voice caught roughly, and she finished in a despairing whisper: "We're never going to see her again."

Kyris put a tentative arm around her shoulders; when she didn't immediately push him away, he pulled her closer, nestling her head against his chest. "At least we know she's safe," he whispered. "She's Susan, so we know she's safe. Even if we don't raise her, the Master doesn't get her, either." Gradually Ace's sobs stopped, and she looked back up at him. Red-rimmed eyes, flushed cheeks still wet with tears, a shiny glimmer around her nostrils, and Kyris realized with an ache in his hearts that she was still the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. "She's safe," he repeated. "Susan is safe."

Neither of them would ever refer to her as "Patience" again.


	10. Old Business

**oOo**

Noni watched from across the square as the Doctor met up with Susan's ten-year-old self. She was a pretty little thing, with a thin, serious face and great dark eyes that seemed far older than the rest of her. Her shoulder-length hair could have done with a bit of brushing, but she looked otherwise healthy. So the old man hadn't done such a bad job after all, although Noni wasn't happy that he'd allowed her wander around by herself on a strange planet.

She was aching to join them, to talk to Susan, but she'd given the Doctor her word that she'd stay away. Reluctantly. She still wasn't talking to him, not really, but he'd refused to go without getting some sort of acknowledgment out of her. And since every second of delay in searching for Ace and Kyris brought another knot to her stomach, she'd nodded her agreement. She hadn't promised not to watch, however, so after the Doctor had exited the TARDIS so had she, keeping him discreetly in view through the crowded city.

The knots in her stomach increased the closer they came to the rendevous point. Once they arrived, she realized she had tiny dents in the palms of her hands where she'd clenched her fists tightly enough for the nails to dig in. She didn't want to be here, to see the proof that Kyris and Ace wouldn't be found in time to raise Susan themselves, but she forced herself to watch. The Doctor was talking; if there was one thing that man could do, it was talk, but Susan appeared to be holding her own, unafraid until the Doctor showed her his own double-pulse.

Noni tensed even as Susan tensed; the young girl was afraid the Gallifreyan stranger was here to take her grandfather away, punish him for stealing the TARDIS and running away from their home world. Noni remained tense even as Susan relaxed, reassured by the Doctor that that wasn't the case. All things Noni knew, from when she was still speaking to the Doctor.

She waited until he did what was he was there to do, giving Susan the hints she would in turn reveal to his own past self...even being born and raised on Gallifrey, it made Noni's head spin, trying to work out the correct grammar for such situations. Then she rose to her feet, turning swiftly and heading back for the TARDIS. She didn't want him to know she'd ever left, although she suspected he already did. But she didn't want him to be able to prove it for sure. She was still angry at him for giving up on Ace and Kyris, for resigning himself to what she refused to believe was the inevitable. There was hope; there was always hope, her parents had taught her to believe that. But it still wasn't fair, and she felt like hitting something, or chucking a knife, but she restrained herself.

_I wish you hadn't killed him, Mother, _she thought as she quickened her pace, threading her way through the stalls and stands of the market. It would have been lovely if the Master were still alive and somehow showed up here, so she could take her frustrations out on him, the one who truly deserved it. And what a triumph it would have been, if she could be the one to wrestle the truth out of him, to discover where he sent her friends and rescue them. They had to still be in his TARDIS, out there somewhere in the void, waiting for a signal from him that would never come.

Noni moved faster, hurrying to beat the Doctor back to the TARDIS, her bleak thoughts her only company.

The Doctor caught a glimpse of Noni moving swiftly through the marketplace and slowed his steps just enough to ensure her arrival at the TARDIS before him. Just enough to give her time to remove herself from the Console Room, if she so desired, to continue her sulk somewhere other than in his presence.

Not that he blamed her; she had every right to feel angry, betrayed, even, by her realization that he'd resigned himself to Ace and Kyris no longer being a part of Susan's life. He'd struggled with that decision, hadn't come to it as easily as Leela's eldest child seemed to believe. He would never stop looking for them, just as he'd told her. Nor would he believe they were dead. "But I wouldn't put it past you to have tucked them away somewhere no one would think to look," he murmured to himself as he strode past the food stands and candy vendors. "Places you believe no one remembers but yourself. But I remembered, and I reminded myself, so it's off to your private hidey-holes I go."

He refused to hope that they would be so easy to locate, but it was a start, which was more than he'd had before he consulted with his first self.

He lengthened his stride. Noni should be back by now, and he allowed himself to feel some of her urgency. Old business was taken care of; time to concentrate on the new.


	11. Tea and Sympathy

**oOo**

"There you are."

Tegan flinched at the sound of Ace's voice, but refused to turn around. She'd avoided the newcomers for the past couple of days, telling herself it was to give them time to get settled in, and expecting the Master to return at any moment to imprison them all once again. The longer he stayed away, the more nervous Tegan became, even though she knew she should take it as a good sign. Maybe he wasn't coming back at all. Or maybe he was just playing more games, working on their nerves or waiting for them to relax their guards before he pounced.

"It took me forever to find this place; doesn't the Master have more than one kitchen?" Ace seemed determined to strike up a conversation, which, considering their last exchange, seemed ludicrous. To make small talk after essentially forcing someone to confess their most terrible secret, even in exchange for confessing their own pain, was pointless. Or so Tegan told herself.

To be honest, she was quietly relieved that Ace had made the first move. She would rather talk to that abrasive young woman than try and hold a conversation with the Doctor's son. It was going to take some time before she could become used to the reality of his existence.

"It's a good thing we had some food in our room, although I'm getting sick of apples and whatever those wafer things are. Kyris is lucky; he doesn't eat as often as I do and he's not half so picky." Ace kept up the casual tone, but Tegan felt the weight of her gaze as she deliberately sipped her tea.

It was her third cup, an herbal blend she hadn't tried until now, but it was all the TARDIS shelves currently held. The regular tea was gone, the stock not replenished the way it always had been in the past, and Tegan assumed it had something to do with the Master's disappearance. Perhaps the TARDIS was in a sulk; when Tegan had first searched out the kitchen, after her confrontation with Ace and her own demons, she'd gone straight for the liquor cabinet, only to find it empty. As if the TARDIS sensed her need and deliberately withheld it. Even the bottle of cooking sherry was gone, although she could see the spot it had occupied, behind the jar of olive oil.

"Look, I'm sorry I was so rotten to you, but I'm going crazy, worrying about my daughter." There was a pause, but Tegan once again refused to speak. "I get it, if you don't want to talk to me, but I really think you should let Kyris take a look at you."

That got her attention. Tegan turned to stare at Ace, standing uncomfortably in the doorway. "Is he a doctor?" There was no other earthly reason for him to have a look at her, unless the Doctor's son was a shrink, unlikely as that seemed. Then again, it was just as unlikely that he was a doctor. Lower case. A real one.

Ace started to shake her head, then stopped, reconsidering. "Sort of. Not with formal medical training or anything like that. He's more of a natural. A Healer."

Even Tegan could hear the upper-case in Ace's pronunciation of the word. "A Healer? What, with crystals and herbs, that sort of mumbo-jumbo?" She sounded skeptical.

Ace walked into the room as far as the cabinets opposite the table at which Tegan sat, then stopped, leaning one hip against the nearest counter in a deliberately casual gesture. "No. More like some kind of ancient Time Lord ability that hasn't cropped up in eons. Probably not since the rest of them stopped having babies the regular way and started weaving them on a Genetic Loom. Whatever that means."

Tegan had no idea what she was talking about, at least as far as genetic looms went, but she did grasp the fact that Ace was implying Kyris had been conceived and born the old-fashioned way. She wasn't prepared for the pain that realization caused her, and she returned her attention to her tea. "Good for him. But I'm not injured, so I don't see any point in letting him take a look at me."

"I think it would be a good idea."

Both women turned, to see Kyris standing diffidently in the doorway, gazing directly at Tegan. "Please. I promise it's not intrusive. All I have to do is touch you, your hand or anywhere else you'd like..." He paused, flushing, as he realized how his words might be misinterpreted. "I meant your shoulder or forehead or something like that," he muttered, reddening further.

Tegan laughed. His discomfort dissolved her own tension, diffused her growing anger at what she saw as a couple of well-meaning busy-bodies getting a bit too nosy about her personal business. She stretched out her hand. "Go on, then. Take a peek." She pulled it back suspiciously as Kyris started to enter the room. "This isn't a try at checking out my mental state, is it, reading my mind to make sure I haven't been driven round the bend? Can you even _do_ that?"

Kyris took a deep breath, looked her straight in the eye--and lied through his teeth. "No, it's just a matter of checking out how you are physically." He tried to make his voice as reassuring, as unthreatening as possible. "If there are any unhealed injuries or developing illnesses, I can take care of them for you." Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ace react, briefly, to his words, her head jerking slightly before she got herself back under control. She knew, better than anyone, how his healing abilities also involved a certain amount of mental contact, but she also knew, as did he, that Tegan would refuse any help if she knew that. What she hadn't known was that he would lie about it.

He wasn't even sure Tegan needed any help, at least as far as physical ailments went, but he and Ace both agreed that her mental state needed to be evaluated as well. And short of "accidentally" brushing up against a rape victim, touching her without her consent, this was the best way to see how the Earth woman was doing, in every sense of the word.

Tegan once again extended her hand, although her expression remained doubtful. Kyris advanced slowly into the room, squeezing Ace's shoulder gently in passing, but his attention remaining focused on Tegan. He didn't want to scare her; although his personal experience in helping rape victims was non-existent, he instinctively erred on the side of caution. Tegan might have jauntily taken it in stride when she discovered their unconscious forms in the Console Room, might have reacted to their presence with a blend of skepticism and bravado, but he suspected it was all a cover up, and braced himself for a fragile ego even as he reached for her hand.

Before they made contact, the entire TARDIS shuddered violently, throwing Kyris across the kitchen to land in a heap with a steadily cursing Ace on top of him. Tegan, who had been sitting in the corner of the built-in table and bench, was wedged tightly against the wall, also cursing but with slightly less colorful language than Ace. "What the bloody hell was that?"

"I don't know!" Kyris shouted, rolling out from under Ace, who scrambled to her feet even as the TARDIS continued to buck violently, threatening to spill her back onto the floor with every movement. She braced herself against the counter as Kyris made it to his hands and knees. He elected to stay there until the wild movements gradually began to ease. Ace reached down and helped him to his feet. "I'd better get to the Console Room; if we've run into some kind of problem the TARDIS had damned well better let me take control!" He left the room at a dead run.

"You OK?" Ace called to Tegan, who nodded, looking slightly dazed. Her legs were braced against the far end of the bench, arms holding tightly to the table top. "Kyris is right, we need to get control of this machine, and fast, or we could all end up in bigger trouble than we already are!"

Tegan scooted out from behind the table. "I'll come with you. I may not have been able to figure this TARDIS out, but there must be something I can do to help, even if it's just handing over tools." She and Ace raced after Kyris, neither of them hearing the disembodied chuckle that filled the kitchen upon their departure.


	12. Glitches

**oOo**

Two days later they were no closer to gaining control of the TARDIS, although they apparently passed safely through whatever the turbulence had been. "Nothing here even remotely appears to be working the way it should," Kyris announced after several hours spent lying flat on his back like a mechanic under a car. "I think it's time to concentrate our energies on locating the auxiliary control room."

"Are you sure it's not just that the Master has this thing wired to only work for him?" Ace had only the vaguest of ideas how a TARDIS worked, even after almost six years traveling with the Doctor, but she'd picked up a few things here and there. "Isn't there some isomorbid thing your father talked about, to lock out the controls?"

"Isomorphic control mode," Kyris corrected her absently as he gazed at the slow rise-and-fall of the time rotor. It hadn't stopped, no matter what he did. "I wouldn't be surprised if the Master has it rigged so only he can control it, but there's something more going on here. The console is working properly, it just isn't tied into the TARDIS the way it should be, and I'm not willing to bet on my abilities to reverse-engineer it. I need to see if it's the same in auxiliary control."

"That could be difficult," Tegan put in. The others looked at her inquisitively. "If the TARDIS decides to reconfigure itself, we could spend a day looking for auxiliary control and find ourselves right back where we started," she explained.

Ace frowned. "I haven't seen it do anything like that."

"It hasn't, not since the Master sent you here from Gallifrey, but that doesn't mean it won't start up again," Tegan replied. "There have been a lot of glitches lately, remember the lights?"

The night before they'd made their way back to the kitchen and sat down to a real meal, which Kyris insisted on cooking. They'd been living on snatched moments of sleep and whatever was most quickly prepared while they delved into the mysteries of the TARDIS console. Kyris had turned out to be quite a good cook, even if Ace teased him the entire time. But even that was nice, watching the two of them relax together, if only for a few minutes. Concern for their daughter was never far from their minds, and Tegan was beginning to be able to tell when they were thinking about Susan just by the way their eyes clouded over, their lips tightened and they unconsciously reached for each other's hands.

As they finished eating, Kyris had hesitated, then asked Tegan about checking on her again. She'd agreed, only to have the lights go out before he was able to take her hand. It had been hours before they'd come back on again, and the relaxed mood had been utterly destroyed. They'd retired to their rooms for a few hours' sleep, then reconvened in the Console Room for another fruitless day of investigation.

Nor were the lights the only strange things happening lately. Aside from that and the shaking they'd received three days ago, there were the missing items from the kitchen, Tegan's door randomly opening sometime during the night while she slept, even silly things like Kyris having to hunt up a new toothbrush every morning because his vanished almost as soon as he left the bathroom.

"Is that what happened to the coffee?" Ace asked. She'd been horrified to discover there was none to be found on the TARDIS.

"The kitchen's never been stocked to anyone's taste but the Master," Tegan reminded her. "Sorry, that doesn't fall under the 'glitch' category."

"No, it just falls under the 'makes me wake up a _bitch_' category," Ace shot back, and Tegan grinned in spite of herself.

"Let's concentrate on finding the auxiliary control room, then we can work on dealing with the glitches," Kyris said. But he was grinning as well, Tegan noted as he pulled Ace closer for a quick hug. "I guess I'll just have to live with the bitch," he murmured into her hair. She responded with a playful punch to his shoulder and a muffled laugh.

Tegan was still grappling with her conflicting emotions toward the Doctor's son. She assumed Ace had told him what the Master had done to her, since she also assumed that was what prompted his desire to check her over with his healing abilities, and was surprised that she didn't feel more uncomfortable with the thought.

Not that she felt comfortable with the thought of the Doctor's son in the first place. Objectively, he was intelligent, brave, level-headed and handsome; she even found it charming that he and Ace were obviously head-over-heels in love. He bore the uncertainty over his daughter's fate stoically; where Ace raged and was prone to temperamental outbursts, he kept his pain tucked just out of sight, allowing only the briefest of glimpses as much, Tegan suspected, out of a natural consideration for others as well as out of an ingrained habit of privacy. In that last, he reminded her most of his father. That, and his eyes, vividly blue and piercing.

Thus, of course, her conflict. She knew it was foolish, to harbor even the slightest resentment toward the young man solely on the basis of his parentage, but there it was: Tegan would have to admit to being foolish. It wasn't Kyris' fault that every time she looked at him she resented the fact that she wasn't his mother, that the Doctor had never allowed her flirtation with him to progress to that point, that it hadn't gotten any deeper than kindergarten tactics: name calling and hair pulling, trying to get his attention by being louder than anything or anyone around them...

Nor did it help that she heard the Master's hateful taunts over and over again, whispering in the back of her mind whenever Kyris was around: _He would never dream of forging a romantic relationship with someone whose life is as brief , as ephemeral as that of a mere human._

Lost in her thoughts, she jumped a bit when Ace spoke. "We should get going. I can pick most of the locks, but if I find one I can't manage, I guarantee that'll be the one room we'll most want to get into."

They filed out the door, Ace filled with grim determination, Kyris with the burning need to do something, anything to resolve this situation, and Tegan with a sort of weary resignation. She suspected it wouldn't be as easy as they hoped, but kept that thought, along with so many others, to herself.


	13. Speaking Terms

**The Doctor's TARDIS**

Noni still wasn't talking to him. Not that the Doctor would ever admit that it bothered him, but every now and then he forgot and addressed a remark to her that required a response. The stiff silence that inevitably followed such lapses was as loud anything he'd ever heard.

He would have to address that issue, and soon. Today, perhaps. It was beginning to distract him, right when he needed to stay focused. They'd investigated two of the Master's old hiding places, but found no evidence that his TARDIS had been there. Or, indeed, that anyone had been in either place for a very long time. "Two down, seven to go," had been the Doctor's comment. Noni had glared at him the entire trip back to his TARDIS, obviously not appreciating his attempt to lighten the mood.

They were in the Console Room. The monochromatic whiteness usually comforted him, but today it bothered him. Maybe it was time for a change--he stopped that thought immediately, recognizing where it came from. The reason the room felt cold and sterile wasn't just because of the color. The deep freeze Noni was radiating was beginning to affect his mood.

She stood, arms crossed, by the main door, waiting for him to plug in the next set of coordinates. If past experience was anything to go by, she would then leave, passing deliberately close before stalking through the interior door and disappearing until meal time. Then she would reappear, prepare something for them both to eat--whether he was hungry or not--eat her own meal in continued silence, clean up, and disappear again until the next morning.

He hadn't realized how much he'd come to depend on having someone about to bounce ideas off of until he suddenly found himself in the peculiar position of traveling with someone who wasn't speaking to him. _And on my own TARDIS, too,_ he thought, suddenly indignant. Yes, Noni had cause to be angry with him, but enough, he decided, was enough. Five subjective days had passed since delivering Susan to his first self, and he'd given Noni more than enough space. Time for drastic measures. "I'm taking you home."

Noni froze in the act of moving toward the door to the interior of the TARDIS. Without turning around, she said: "I have to help you find Ace and Kyris."

"Ah, so you can speak. Which means you can also listen." The Doctor's voice went cold; he was done mollycoddling her. He'd given her time to get over her hurt at his perceived betrayal, time which she'd used instead to nurse her grudge. "I understand that you're angry. Believe me, I'm not exactly happy with the current situation myself. But I cannot fight a war on two fronts, and if you cannot find a way to live with the decisions I've been forced to make, then one of those decisions has to be to return you to Gallifrey while I search for my missing family members by myself. I cannot spare the time or the energy to babysit a pouting child."

Noni turned, then, the shock of his words like a dash of cold water on her face. "Now I'm not allowed to be angry?" Her voice was shrill, but at least she was talking.

"Of course you are!" the Doctor exclaimed, slapping the TARDIS console with one hand. Unintentionally demonstrating his own frustrations. "I've never denied anyone the right to their feelings! What I am objecting to is your expression of those feelings. I cannot fight you and search for the Master's TARDIS at the same time, and that is exactly what you are forcing me to do!"

Eyes wide, she was obviously considering his words. "You act like it doesn't matter to you, so I thought you didn't care." Her voice was tentative, uncertain. Another good sign; it meant she was actually listening.

"Well, now you know better." His voice, still icy, showed signs of thawing as he regarded her out of hooded eyes. "Right now my focus is divided, and that is exactly the sort of thing that gets people killed." He deliberately pulled a face. "Usually me."

A snort of laughter was startled out of Noni, quickly stifled as she considered his words, and the ultimatum she'd just been delivered. She felt a flash of guilt, and tried unsuccessfully to bury it. "I didn't realize. I'm sorry." Sulking wasn't worth being thrown off the TARDIS. And she truly hadn't realized that her mood was affecting him, certainly not to the extent he was admitting to. "It's just that it hurts, losing Susan like that."

"I know." Two simple words, words Noni hadn't expected to hear. The Doctor had acted, to her mind, as if she should simply forget Susan and move on, as if he had already done so. Now, she realized, that was simply not the case. He knew, because he felt the same way she did, and Noni had been selfishly refusing to acknowledge his pain, too wrapped up in her own, too busy feeling betrayed and lost. Too busy, she admitted, acting like a child.

"I'm sorry." It cost her, to repeat those words, but she meant them, needed him to hear them. Because she had been selfish, and childish, and much as she disliked admitting it, he'd been right to call her on the carpet for giving him the silent treatment. Instead of focusing on the goal, she'd let herself become distracted and in doing so, had distracted the Doctor at a time when he needed to use every ounce of concentration.

"Thank you." The Doctor returned to entering the coordinates for their next destination. "I'll let you know when we've arrived."

Noni continued out the door. She'd found a fantastic exercise yard off the gymnasium, complete with the illusion of a bright blue sky overhead and what felt like real grass on the ground. She'd set up a hay bale, probably meant as an archery target but perfect for knife throwing practice. She'd even scared up an image of the Master and made multiple copies of his sneering face, putting it smack in the center of the target and taking immense pleasure each time a copy was shredded to bits. It probably wasn't healthy, but it helped pass the time.

**oOo**

Only a few hours passed before the Doctor announced their arrival. Noni had long since put her knives away and was forcing herself to eat a sandwich in the kitchen nearest the Console Room, which was where the Doctor found her. She popped the last bite into her mouth and took a generous swallow of milk before wiping her face and dashing after him as he made his was back to the Console Room.

"This one seems a bit more promising," he said as she joined him in examining the monitor. The visual that greeted her didn't exactly match his description as "promising"; she saw a dark, irregular planetary surface liberally strewn with boulders and with the horizon suspiciously close. "The residual energy readings seem to indicate at least some TARDIS activity recently on this planetoid."

Noni bit back a groan of disappointment. Residual energy meant there wasn't another TARDIS currently there, which was what she'd been hoping. Still, it was better than the nothing they'd found so far. "What do we do now?"

"We investigate," was the not-unexpected reply. "We'll have to go outside to get a better idea of where we stand; fortunately, there's enough gravity and breathable atmosphere so we don't need to hunt up the environmental suits. Come along, Noni." The Doctor grabbed his brolly and headed for the door.

In his other hand was the small device he insisted would help them pinpoint the Master's TARDIS. He'd built it using information he received from his first self as well as the TARDIS database; she'd watched silently as he put it together, but had stubbornly refused to ask about it. Until now. "What exactly does that thing do, Doctor?" She nodded at the innocuous metal and plastic rectangle. It didn't look much more complex than her calculation device back home, and appeared to actually have fewer buttons.

"It detects and interprets the energy emitted by the Master's TARDIS, and can tell us how recently it's been to a particular location. In this case, the location we currently occupy." He walked through the door, still talking, and she followed, listening intently. "I used a similar device when we were looking for the Master before, but he was in control of his TARDIS at the time and was aware he was being followed. At the same time, I was missing pertinent information, so it did us no good. This one, however, appears to be working the way I anticipated." He tapped a series of buttons, peering intently at the readout monitor, and grunted. "This way." He took a sharp left, Noni trotting at his heels.

"What if he's been here in the past or will be here in the future? What if we're not in the same time zone?" There seemed to be a lot of variables to account for, which made Noni nervous.

"It's calibrated for his most recent appearance, relative to us; otherwise, we'd have to investigate every single time and place he ever visited these particular private getaways of his," the Doctor explained absently. His eyes were glued to the monitor. "Do be a good girl and let me concentrate." That earned him a glare, which he either ignored or just didn't notice. Noni had no way of telling, but she obeyed, keeping shut and concentrating on not bouncing too far off course in the lower gravity.

Three hours later they returned to the TARDIS, tired but in relatively good spirits. The Master's TARDIS had, indeed, been here. It had sat here for a long period of time, months, perhaps, before suddenly leaving only a few weeks prior to their arrival.

"Can we tell where it went?" had been Noni's first, eagerly asked, question, but the Doctor's negative response had dashed that hope.

"No, but it's still good news. If his TARDIS was here as long as this," he patted the tracking device affectionately, "says he was, then this isn't where his TARDIS ended up after he kidnapped Kyris and Ace."

Noni frowned. "How does that help?"

"Because it's proof he's been using these old hiding places of his, and that he feels confident enough of their obscurity to leave his TARDIS here for extended periods of time. It's significant that it left here around the time he took his hostages; he took it to Gallifrey, then sent it away using the link he'd created to control his TARDIS over long distances."

"Using someone else's stolen technology," Noni remembered with a black frown. "But he didn't send it back here, so maybe he isn't so sure of this place after all."

"We still have several other possibilities to explore," the Doctor reminded her. "Perhaps he thought it wise not to return to a place he'd spent such a long period of time occupying. I think it would be a good idea to not only explore his other possible hiding places, but also to go back and monitor those first two locations again. Chin up, my girl; he's not controlling his TARDIS now, so we're that much more likely to find it. After all," he added confidently, "there's only so much pre-programming he could have done, only so many contingencies he could have tried to cover."

Noni had her doubts, but kept them private as the Doctor, humming under his breath, punched in the next set of coordinates and closed the TARDIS' outer door. If this didn't work, there was literally no other way to search for the Master's TARDIS except through trial and error. That was more than a hundred lifetime's worth of work, and no guarantee of success at the end.

With that depressing thought, Noni opted to leave the Console Room. "Let me know when arrive; I'll probably be in the exercise yard." Throwing knives at the Master's image and trying to think positive thoughts.


	14. Revelations and Epiphanies

**The Master's TARDIS**

After nearly a week of searching, the Master still hadn't put in an appearance, and the three kidnapping victims still hadn't found the auxiliary control room. As Tegan had predicted, the corridors never led the same way twice, but they were determined not to give up. To hedge their bets they'd tried running string from one point to another, but it always vanished the next time they looked for it. Ace came up with the idea of marking doors they'd already checked; painted-on black X's vanished but when she found a welding torch and burned the marks into the doors, they found them again next time they looked. Some things were apparently beyond glitching.

"At least something's working right," she grumbled. Of course, that meant she had to drag along the welding implements, but she did so uncomplainingly. Tegan's inspiration was to dig up a knapsack and keep a supply of snacks and water handy, so they wouldn't have to hunt up the kitchen every morning.

On the third day, while Ace fiddled with her lockpicks and cursed under her breath as she knelt before yet another door, Tegan dropped the knapsack, stretching and rubbing her lower back. Kyris noticed the grimace of pain and instinctively reached out for her, then stopped. "Tegan, are you all right?"

She shrugged. "Just a little twinge in my lower back. Nothing worse than what I've already been living with."

Kyris frowned. "Maybe this would be a good time for me to check you out," he offered tentatively. He hadn't brought up that particular subject since the search for the auxiliary control room had started, too distracted by the details that decision had entailed to remember he had other things he hoped to accomplish.

"Sure, go ahead." Tegan held her hand out. Kyris still raised conflicting emotions for her, but not to the point where she was still unwilling to let him use his healing abilities to examine her. Hell, she was beginning to develop a genuine fondness for both of her new traveling companions, however unwillingly they'd been thrown together.

Kyris reached for her, and the ceiling promptly developed a series of sprinkler heads which proceeded to douse them all in hard streams of cold water. Tegan yelped and jumped back, while Kyris turned disbelieving eyes upward. "You've got to be kidding me!"

Ace scowled. "Great. Just great. Another bloody glitch in the system!" She blinked water out of her eyes, scrubbing futilely at her face. The door chose that moment to click open, to reveal an empty room also being liberally doused with water. She slammed it shut in disgust.

"I'm not so sure it is a glitch," Kyris disagreed, a thoughtful expression on his face. He completely ignored the water streaming down on him, his attention instead on Tegan.

"What else could it be?" Tegan asked, shading her eyes with her hands and shoving her now-drenched bangs away from her face.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say the TARDIS doesn't want me touching you. No, really," he insisted as the two women treated him to nearly-identical dubious stares. "Think about it. Every time I've asked to check you out, every time I've nearly touched you, something's happened. We hit mysterious turbulence, the lights all go out, and now this!" He waved his arms at the jets of water still streaming down on them. "Each time it happened right as I reached for your hand." He'd obviously been giving it some thought.

"Then maybe it's time you stopped asking permission," Ace snapped. Without warning, she grabbed Kyris and Tegan by the wrists and shoved their hands together.

Tegan gasped as she felt a warm tingle cross her skin, beginning on her hand but quickly enveloping her in a general feeling of well-being. An involuntary smile crossed her face, and a sigh escaped her as she closed her eyes to better savor the moment. She hadn't felt this good in ages. All the little aches and pains that she hadn't consciously noticed disappeared, the mild headache that never seemed to get bad enough to medicate but never really went away, even the lingering heartburn and churning nausea that she felt after most meals, all her stress-related ailments vanished. It was wonderful.

She opened her eyes and looked at Kyris, who had closed his own eyes, her hand clasped loosely in his. "Well? How I'm doing? Any undiscovered injuries?" She couldn't muster the energy for snarkiness, not feeling as good as she did, so the question was asked in a tone of mild inquiry.

"Hmm?" Kyris seemed distracted as he pulled his hand away and opened his eyes. The feeling of well-being lingered after contact had been broken, as did Tegan's smile. "Uh, how do you feel?"

The question seemed as automatic as it was mundane, but Tegan answered it truthfully: "I feel super, better than I have for a long time. Thank you." She glanced over at Ace. "You were right, but don't let it go to your head." She grinned to soften the impact of the words. "All the physical pains I've been living with and ignoring are gone, like they were never there." She'd forgotten Kyris' odd comment in the euphoria of the moment.

"I told you it would help," Ace grinned back, but she was worried about Kyris. She hadn't forgotten what he said, his belief that the TARDIS was trying to prevent him from touching Tegan. He seemed dazed, unsure of himself, and she resolved to ask him about it later, when they were alone. Because if he wanted to say anything in front of Tegan, he would have already done so. Which meant there was something more to the situation, just as she'd feared.

The water had stopped as abruptly as it started. They were drenched, all of them, right down to their skivvies. Not that it bothered Ace all that much, but she felt compelled to ask, "Should we keep going, or go find some dry clothes?" She know which one she'd vote for.

Just like the Doctor's TARDIS, this time machine also held a wardrobe room, although the outfits in it tended toward a monochrome palette. Black, to be precise, with the occasional gray or navy blue thrown in for good measure. Kyris and Ace resisted taking anything from it for as long as they could, but had eventually been forced to at least search for changes of underwear and socks. The wardrobe door had been one of the first Ace marked, with a huge "W" right in its center. But she was reluctant to lose the ground they'd gained, because any backtracking inevitably led them down corridors they'd already explored and marked.

"Let's just find the damned auxiliary console room," Kyris replied, wringing some of the water out of his t-shirt, the one he'd been wearing when they entered the Master's disguised TARDIS. It was Ace's favorite, the black one with the big yellow question mark on it. "I've had just about enough of this nonsense." He shook his hands, and droplets of water flew in every direction.

Ace frowned as he slogged off down the hall, not waiting for her to mark the empty room with her usual "E". Tegan followed, a smile lingering on her face, her hand occasionally rubbing at the small of her back as if she couldn't believe it didn't hurt. Ace stopped watching and started up her welding torch, etched a hurried "E" into the door and trudged after them.

**oOo**

An hour later, as Tegan was digging into the knapsack for a bottle of water, she was interrupted by a whoop of triumph from Ace. She had managed to open a particularly stubborn door and finally struck gold. As she pushed the door fully open, Tegan was given full view of a second time rotor on top of a second console in a room vaguely reminiscent of a Victorian den, all wooden paneling and dark carpets. Even the console was made of some deep brown material, its base resembling nothing so much as the trunk of a stubby tree. She wouldn't have been surprised to see an antler-covered chandelier hanging from the ceiling, but it was standard TARDIS lighting that greeted them as they filed into the room.

The only anomalous item was a large mahogany desk off to one side, with a padded leather chair in front of it and a smooth leather blotter settled smack in the center of the wide wooden surface. Kyris spared the furniture only a passing glance as he bee-lined for the console, sonic screwdriver in one hand, scrounged tool-kit in the other, a determined look on his face. Ace and Tegan kept out of his way, relieved that they'd finally found the room they'd been searching so diligently for. As an added bonus, it did not appear to have been drenched by the sprinkler system.

"I hope he isn't pinning his hopes on this thing working for him any better than the main console," Tegan murmured to Ace, who had perched on the edge of the desk and was watching Kyris intently. The sense of well-being from her healing had started to fade, and her anxieties were rapidly regaining their hold. She'd grown increasingly convinced that there was no way for them to wrestle away control of this TARDIS, and was no longer able to keep her doubts to herself. Wearily, she dropped the knapsack to the floor by her feet.

Ace shrugged, still watching Kyris as he opened the console base and began examining its circuitry. "Doing something's better than doing nothing. Maybe he'll find a clue as to why the main console's rigged differently; maybe he'll find something the Master overlooked or wired wrong, some kind of loophole we can take advantage of." The glance she gave Tegan was rebuking. "We can't just sit here and wait for the Master to come back, or wait for someone else to rescue us."

She meant the Doctor, Tegan realized. "Has he regenerated, since I saw him last?" She hadn't thought to ask before.

Ace nodded, unfazed by Tegan's confused syntax. She knew which "he" she was referring to. "Yeah, a couple of times, actually. He's on his seventh now."

Tegan knew she shouldn't be surprised by the news, but found herself filled with an unexpected grief nonetheless. The man she'd known, the one she'd traveled with and held such complicated feelings for, was dead. She wanted to ask how it had happened, but kept silent. Knowing he was dead was bad enough; hearing how he died would be even more painful. She might even have been able to save him, if only she hadn't run away like a frightened child... "Do you know what happened to Turlough?" she asked hurriedly, switching to a much less painful subject before her thoughts became even more depressing.

"Went home, to his planet Trion," Ace replied promptly. "Lived to a ripe old age, too, according to Romana's gadget. Married, kids, grandkids, the whole bit." She sounded envious. "After that the Doctor had another girl on board before me; no, two, I forgot about Peri. She was dead before the Master got himself so involved in our lives, although he lied and told the Doctor she wasn't."

Tegan raised an eyebrow at that one. "The Master lied to the Doctor to give him a happy ending?" She'd love to hear the rest of _that_ story!

Ace nodded. "It was all a trick to get into the Matrix. He said she was living across the galaxy as a warrior queen or some such nonsense, to distract the Doctor from what he was _really_ up to." She snorted. "She was too 20th century, that one; there's no _way_ she'd have gone off with some barbarian warrior prince! He was more Leela's type, and even her taste turned out civilized in the end." She stopped abruptly, turning a chagrined glance on Tegan. "Never knew I was such a gossip," she muttered.

"No, I want to know," Tegan protested. "It's not gossiping, exactly, more like catching up with old friends or family you haven't seen in a while. Even if I've never met most of them, I've always felt connected to anyone who traveled with the Doctor."

Ace nodded her understanding. "It is like family." She looked down at her soaking wet feet, scuffed them against the carpet as she followed her own painful line of thought.

"For the five years I was back," Tegan continued, "Sarah Jane Smith and I managed to get together every six months or so, sometimes a bit longer, sometimes a bit less. Either she'd wangle an assignment to Australia or I'd save up enough to visit her in London." Her voice turned reminiscent. "If I was in England, first I'd visit my grandfather, then Sarah Jane and I would get together with a bunch of the UNIT lot; we saw Harry Sullivan loads of times, and Jo Grant-Jones made it one year..." Her voice trailed off as she remembered that Jo was dead now.

"Yeah, Jo Grant-Jones, mysterious hit and run accident," Ace said grimly. "And Melanie Bush, she was with the Doctor after Peri; I met her before she trotted off with a pirate chappie." That raised a brief grin that quickly faded. "Next I hear of her, she's dead of snakebite in Antarctica, courtesy of the Master. Gotta give the bastard credit for originality." _If nothing else,_ her tone implied.

"A little too much originality," Tegan agreed. Why did every conversation have to end up with the Master? "At least he's left Nyssa alone." She couldn't bear the thought of her friend falling victim to the renegade Time Lord's evil schemes.

"Yeah, she was running Terminus like a proper hospital last time we checked in on her. Very efficient." Ace shook her head. "Working like mad, but I think I remember there being a man in her life. And there was definitely a wedding at some point." She hadn't been paying close attention at the time, more interested in seeing who was still alive.

Tegan's ears perked up at that one. "Nyssa got married? Really? That's fantastic!" She beamed, her first all-out smile since her abduction. "I'm glad someone really did get the happy ending. If anyone deserves one, it's Nyssa."

"Would you two mind cutting the chatter and helping me out?" Kyris interrupted peevishly.

Ace jumped down from the desk, leaving a damp spot behind from her soaking-wet jeans. "What do you need?"

"That." He pointed without looking at some small piece of what looked like monitoring equipment. "I need to make sure I'm calibrating this correctly…" His voice faded into mumbles as Ace knelt down next to him.

"If you don't mind, I think I'll see if I can find the kitchen and restock this." Tegan nudged the knapsack with one foot. The offer was sincere, but she also wanted to have some time alone, to process everything Ace had just shared with her. To come to terms with the bad, and quietly celebrate the good.

"Sounds good." Ace watched as she left the room. When Kyris stopped needing her to hand him new tools or pieces of equipment, she wandered back over to the desk, pulling the chair out and plopping into despite her damp condition. She ran idle fingers across the edge of the blotter, yelping in surprise as a computer monitor and some kind of keyboard appeared out of nowhere. "Oi! Kyris, come have a look at this!"

Kyris scooted out from under the console, hastily wiping his fingers on his jeans. He hadn't made much progress in discerning a way to gain control of the machine, but he had at least discovered that this console was connected to the TARDIS exactly the way he'd expected it to be. It still didn't explain how the main console was working, but it gave him something familiar to fiddle with. Something he might actually be able to affect.

He joined Ace at the desk, examining the unexpected computer. "I wonder what this does," he murmured, tentatively touching the screen. It instantly sprang to life, and Kyris ran his fingers over the keyboard, typing something in that caused the screen to go blank. He let out a frustrated curse, and she let him fool fruitlessly with it for a moment before asking the question she'd been dying to ask ever since he was finally able to check Tegan out.

"What is it about Tegan you don't want to tell her?" she demanded without preamble. Kyris flinched, and she knew she was right; there _was_ something. "Is there something wrong with her you can't fix, something the Master did to her? Poison?" she guessed, not giving Kyris time to respond, rushing to try and get this over with before Tegan rejoined them. "A virus you can't heal? Or is it her mind, has she got emotional problems?"

Before he could answer, the screen in front of them suddenly came back to life, instantly capturing their attention. Ace frowned at the lines of data, but Kyris appeared to be able to follow it without any problems, so she remained behind him, watching from over his shoulder.

Aside from the occasional muttered exclamation, never explained or expanded upon, Kyris was silent for the next five minutes, absorbed in whatever information he was obtaining from the machine in front of him. After the first minute Ace began pacing restlessly in the background, pausing once in a while to see if anything had changed.

"That sneaky son of a bitch!"

That exclamation brought Ace back to Kyris' side. "What is it? What's he done?" No need to ask who Kyris was speaking of.

The door opened and Tegan walked in. "Sorry I'm late, the blasted TARDIS kept reconfiguring itself; I kept ending up in the corridor outside my room!" Belatedly she noted the computer screen and keyboard. "What's this?" She came closer, absently setting the knapsack on the floor next to the still-open console.

"Kyris was just about to tell me," Ace replied. "So go on. Tell us."

"The Master seems to have gotten access to some kind of technology that allows him to directly interface with the TARDIS on a telepathic level, to tap directly into the Vortex without it overwhelming his mind." Kyris sounded fascinated. "It allows him to control the TARDIS remotely, even across vast distances and, if I'm reading this correctly, across temporal and even dimensional barriers."

"You mean he could control this from...from E-Space, if he wanted to?" Tegan guessed, sounding intrigued. "That would explain a lot."

Kyris nodded. "Not only that, but it can also be used to transfer mental energy directly into the TARDIS matrix." At their blank stares, he explained: "If I'm understanding this correctly, the Master's found a way to store mental energy, a person's mind, until it can be transferred to another body." He stopped short, a horrified expression on his face. "Another body," he repeated, as if comprehending something unexpected. Something bad.

"That's very _Spock's Brain_," Ace allowed. "But why's it so important? So the Master's come up with another way to beat death, so what else is new?"

Kyris was staring at Tegan, who took a step back, disturbed by the intensity of his gaze. "He found another way to put himself into a new body?" she asked, her heart pounding as she had her own flash of horrified inspiration. "Is that why he kept me here, why he kept me alive? So he could take over my body if he needed to?" _Insurance_, his voice whispered in her mind, and she shuddered.

"No, I think he had something different planned." Kyris hesitated before continuing, choosing his next words delicately. "Tegan, when I touched you--when I healed you--I discovered something about your physical condition. All the problems you've been having, the indigestion and discomfort, the queasiness, they were all symptoms--"

Tegan inhaled sharply, paled, then reddened. "You are not," she said angrily, "telling me what I think you're telling me." Kyris opened his mouth, but Tegan beat him to it. "Insurance," she spat out. "That's what he meant by insurance, it has to be! Insuring his own future, turning me into a...a bloody incubator!"

Comprehension bloomed on Ace's features. "Pregnant?" she breathed. "He attacked you so he could knock you up?" She turned to Kyris for confirmation, shaking her head at his nod. "Unbelievable." She glared ceilingward. "What's the matter, you git?" she shouted angrily, as if the Master could hear her. "Clones not good enough for you?"

"Get it out of me." Startled, Ace and Kyris both turned to stare at Tegan. Who glared right back at them, arms folded tightly against her chest. "I mean it, get it out of me. I don't care what you have to do, but there's no way in _hell_ I'm giving birth to that bastard's child. I'd rather die!"

"Neither option is acceptable."

The voice came from nowhere, but it was unmistakable.

The Master.


	15. Ghost in the Machine

**The Doctor's TARDIS**

Another disappointing day was coming to an end. The Doctor had dredged up a few other possibilities, bolt-holes the Master had been known to use once in a great while, but none had shown any residual energy from the other TARDIS, nothing recent enough to investigate. So they'd returned to their earliest possibilities, hoping something had changed, but again finding nothing. Noni was getting ready to head back for her room and a few hours of restless, interrupted sleep when the Doctor's sudden exclamation stopped her in her tracks.

"Bingo!"

Noni's heart skipped a beat, then resumed thudding within her chest, hard enough to hurt as the adrenalin flow increased. "You found them?" She rushed to his side.

"I found them!" The Doctor's voice, his expression, were filled with elation. He'd taken a moment to run one last scan before sending the TARDIS to their next destination, and had almost missed the energy spike in his discouragement. "Now, to just pin them down exactly in time and space..." He continued muttering to himself while Noni, fully awake now, tried unsuccessfully not to hover.

She backed up hastily when the Doctor sprang into motion, dashing around the console to pull a set of levers, then racing back to enter some numbers via a series of buttons on the opposite side. Noni held her breath as he slammed his palm on the button that set the time rotor into motion, rising and falling in time with her still-racing heart. "Are we really on their trail?" She'd started to lose hope, to believe that the hints the Doctor's first self had given them weren't going to be enough to find Ace and Kyris; if this turned out to be a false alarm, she didn't know how she could bear it.

"Yes, we're really on their trail," the Doctor replied, his voice ringing with confidence. "It's only a matter of time now; even if his TARDIS moves again, I'll be able to follow."

"And then?"

The Doctor stared at her blankly. "Then we get them out, of course."

"And after that?" Noni pressed.

"After that, we'll see what we shall see." An evasive answer, just as she'd expected. And the stubborn set to his chin told her she was a far patch from being able to bully him into giving her a more definite one. One involving the retrieval of Susan, for instance. If Ace and Kyris were alive and well--and they had to be, she refused to believe otherwise--then there was no reason to keep them from being reunited with their daughter. No reason at all.

She clung to that thought as she stared at the time rotor, silently willing it to hurry up.

**The Master's TARDIS**

"Where are you?" Ace demanded, looking around wildly. The room remained unchanged; same dark paneling on the walls, same dark carpeting, same desk, same console. Same occupants: herself, Kyris, and a now ghostly-white Tegan.

"Don't bother searching for me, Dorothy." Ace started at his unexpected use of her real name. "I'm not here in the physical sense. I hope that doesn't disappoint you, Tegan," he added, with a cruel chuckle.

Tegan was shaking; she hadn't realized how his reappearance, even in disembodied form, would affect her. "Go to hell," she managed, although her voice was as shaky as the rest of her.

"So you've been monitoring us from somewhere else, is that it?" Ace was defiant. "Still on Gallifrey, are you?"

"Only in a sense," the Master replied. "I've been watching you for quite some time, waiting for the right moment to reveal my presence. And here it is; I couldn't have planned it better myself. At first I didn't want you to reveal Tegan's condition to her," he added, apparently addressing Kyris. "But the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. It had a kind of delicious irony to it, especially since I knew exactly how she would react."

"And why exactly _is_ your presence inside the TARDIS? Because I know you're not just communicating with us from another location," Kyris said. His voice was even, but Ace could tell he was just as angry as she was. The conversational tone he managed reminded her very much of the Doctor when faced with similar circumstances. "Who killed you, my father?"

"Very good, boy, very good indeed," the Master said after a moment. "As a matter of fact it was that bitch, Leela, who put a knife in my head. All because she felt her half-blooded whelp was in danger. For some reason, she felt...very strongly about it." He sounded amused.

"You seem to be taking it very well, getting killed just when you thought you had everything you wanted. I assume you had our baby as well as Noni, or am I wrong?" Kyris' tone remained conversational, but Ace knew a bulls-eye when she heard one.

The Master's silence stretched out for long instant. When he finally spoke, it seemed to be with great reluctance. "I had them both, yes, after disposing of you two and sending my TARDIS away so you couldn't be located. Unfortunately, I was unaware of Leela's presence until after I'd revealed my plans to the Doctor regarding her daughter's future. She was a last minute addition to those plans," he added. "Originally I'd only intended to retrieve your daughter, but I was forced to reevaluate that decision when I saw Noni. Such a lovely child," he mused.

"I just wish you were still alive so I could kill you myself." Ace tried to ignore the implications of the Master's words, but couldn't. Plans. Plans for Noni, plans for Susan…She felt cold all over. "On second thought, I'm glad Leela killed you. I hope it hurt. A lot."

"When I realized who your daughter grows up to be, I decided I preferred not having her about from infancy," the Master continued, ignoring Ace's outburst. "It will be so much better to take her from the Doctor's first self. I believe he had a few run-ins with the Daleks during that time period; it wouldn't take much for me to influence the outcome of one of those instances to ensure her untimely demise."

Before Ace or Kyris could respond to that horrific possibility, he turned his attention back to Tegan. "As for Noni, she was going to be company for you, Tegan. Someone to help you during your pregnancy and attend you at child birth. Perhaps even someone to replace you in my bed; the young are so much more...malleable. Eventually I know I could have 'persuaded' her to enjoy my advances."

Persuaded. He meant hypnotized, mind control. Tegan's skin crawled as he continued speaking, obviously enjoying her horrified reaction. She fought down a surge of nausea that had nothing to do with her current condition. "Why?" she demanded, feeling her throat catch with fear for a young girl she'd never met. "You've already got your _insurance_," she spat the word out distastefully. "Why would you do that to someone else?"

"Never fear, my dear Tegan; no one could replace you in my heart." She closed her eyes and shook her head, once, swiftly, as if trying to dislodge his voice from her ears. "But, as I told the Doctor, I've felt a recent urge for creating a family of my own, especially after seeing how domestic my old enemy has become." He spoke those words with a certain amount of relish. "You are the means for preserving my future; Noni was going to be the one to ensure my bloodline, since I doubt very much the genetic loom will ever be used to weave anyone from my particular genealogy." He sounded genuinely regretful at that revelation. None of his listeners exhibited any signs of sympathy. "I've been mulling over the prospect of fatherhood, and it holds a certain appeal. Young minds, molded in my image, with Susan, as I'd originally intended, believing herself to be one of them--"

"BASTARD!" That was it; Ace had had enough. Eyes wild, she swiveled her head in multiple directions, searching desperately for something she could destroy, something to make that hateful voice stop. "You're not using us to get yourself a new body!" She grabbed up the tool kit, heaved it directly at the computer monitor on the desk, smashing it to pieces before Kyris or Tegan could stop her.

The Master's mocking laughter rang out. "Do you think that will have any effect on me at all? Do you think I would be so careless as to allow you access to something that could cause me harm?"

"You worked hard enough to keep us away from it!" Ace shouted defiantly.

"I let you find this place," the Master corrected her smugly. "I made it just difficult enough that you thought the goal worth achieving, and when I was done toying with you, I allowed you to make your way here. Just as I made sure the information Kyris needed to put two and two together was available to him immediately after discovering Tegan's condition." More laughter; the Master found a great deal amusing today. "That equipment you destroyed was merely a means for me to integrate the program with the TARDIS systems when I initially downloaded it, Dorothy, after certain modifications were made to the main console. Now that I'm part of the TARDIS itself, I don't require any such external hardware to do things...like this!"

A hum of energy was the only warning they had; suddenly, Tegan felt her ears pop. She started to back up, only to bump into something, the wall she thought, but when she looked, it was a good two feet away. She reached up tentatively, only to have her hand meet some kind of unseen resistance, a vibration that gave a faint static discharge as her fingers explored it. One that she couldn't penetrate, no matter how hard she pushed.

"Don't bother, Tegan; you can't escape the force field. It's merely a precaution; I don't want you or anyone else causing you harm. It's permeable to air, so you needn't worry about suffocating. Or hope for it," the Master added spitefully.

"I'm not having this baby! Ever! You know I'll find a way to get rid of it!" Tegan was on the verge of hysteria. She felt panicked, trapped, and not just by the force field. "You bastard! Let me out!" She pummeled her prison with both hands, to no effect.

Ace, chest heaving, was moving toward Tegan, obviously determined to find a way to free the other woman. Kyris had moved next to her when a golden glow suddenly enveloped them, crackling with energy. A flare of static caused the hair on their hands, the back of their arms and necks, to stand on end. Their bodies convulsed as they cried out in pain. Tegan screamed at the Master to stop, beat her fists futilely against the unyielding surface that imprisoned her.


	16. Tempus Ex Machina

The glow vanished as abruptly as it began, leaving the other two limp and exhausted on the floor. As they began to stir, Tegan's bubble-shaped force field became briefly visible as a charge of green energy flared inside its boundaries, vanishing almost instantly. Instead of screaming in pain, however, Tegan stiffened into immobility, frozen into position, her hands still raised in mid-swing, fists clenched, mouth open.

"What did you do to us? What did you do to _her_?" Kyris demanded, staring at Tegan as he struggled to his feet. There was no residual pain, just a feeling of being drained, without the energy to do more than stand. Ace, too seemed none the worse for wear as she picked herself up off the floor and plodded determinedly toward the other woman's prison.

She prodded the invisible surface, meeting the same resistance Tegan had, hissing slightly as the static discharge zapped her fingertips. "Tegan?" Ace called, but the other woman remained frozen, staring directly at the spot Ace and Kyris had just occupied. The place they'd been attacked and inexplicably released. "Tell us what you did!" Ace shouted, glaring angrily at the ceiling. Her energy appeared to be returning, and Kyris felt his own reserves coming back. So whatever the Master had done, it had only been temporary. A way to punish them, perhaps, or a simple demonstration of power.

"You'll discover what I've done to you when the time comes." The Master's voice was dismissive. "As for Tegan, I'm simply insuring that she is unable to make good on her threats. I intend for her to give birth to that child, and I intend to take over his body once it reaches the proper maturity."

"You plan to just wait in the TARDIS memory banks until Tegan's son is a grown man?" Kyris sounded incredulous.

The Master's cold laughter rang out again. "There will be no waiting. I've immobilized her in order to put the second part of my plan in motion. The one I intended for our dear Miss Jovanka from the start." Another burst of energy filled the force field bubble, causing Ace to stumble back as the static charge became painful to the touch. The bubble filled with a fine blue mist that lingered for several minutes, emitting a faint sizzling sound. During those minutes, Tegan remained frozen, but Ace and Kyris could just see through the mist, enough to realize her body was changing.

As they watched, horrified, her hair and nails grew longer, her breasts seemed to enlarge, but their attention was riveted to her abdomen. It expanded rapidly, pushing her blouse up, while her knit skirt was stretched out and finally forced down around her hips. As the blue mist evaporated, Tegan's eyes blinked, her hands lowered, and she stumbled to her knees, staring down at radically altered body in horrified disbelief.

"What have you done?" she cried, terror etched into every feature. "What's happened to me?"

"Merely advanced your pregnancy by several months," came the Master's reply. "You're now approximately six months along. In a few hours, when I've recharged the temporal energies I'm using to age you, I'll advance it even further, until you're into your ninth month. Then, when the baby is born, I'll age him to the appropriate point and have my consciousness placed into his body."

"We'll find a way to stop you." Ace's voice was full of impotent fury. There was no one to attack, nothing to destroy, and her fury grew as she realized the full extent of her helplessness.

"How?" The Master's voice turned mocking. "Short of destroying my TARDIS, which would not only be suicide but would also, I assure you, be impossible, you can do nothing to stop me. Nothing. Although I'm sure Tegan will be grateful for your assistance once she goes into labor--"

There was the jangle of electronic chimes, which seemed to startle the Master as well as the other three. "What?" was all he had time to ask before another disembodied voice rang out, artificial yet vaguely feminine in nature.

"Suitable host body located. Transfer process begun, as per parameters indicated in initial instructions."

"What? No, I order you to stop!" The Master suddenly sounded frantic. "TARDIS, cancel transfer process immediately! Stop! I command y--!" His voice abruptly cut off. At the same moment, the force field surrounding Tegan disappeared and she stumbled back to her feet.

"Transfer process complete. Mental energies of subject 'Master' permanently installed in suitable host body. Awaiting further instructions."

Kyris moved to stand next to the console. He reached hesitantly for the TARDIS controls, stunned as they respond obediently to his commands. "I'm just finding out where we are," he mumbled. The view screen sprang to life, showing what appeared to be a meadow of some sorts, with a few trees in the distance. "It's the moon of a gas giant in a system not too far from Gallifrey." He sounded incredulous.

Ace moved closer to Tegan, reaching hesitantly to touch her shoulder. "Are you all right?" When no answer was forthcoming, she shook the other woman lightly. "Tegan, are you hurt?"

"Hurt," Tegan repeated, sounding dazed. "No, not hurt. Not in pain. Just six bloody months pregnant now." A laugh was building in her throat, and Ace half-raised her hand, fearful of hysterics. Not that Tegan wasn't entitled, but they all needed to keep their heads right now. Fortunately, Tegan bit the laughter back down, took a deep breath and looked at Kyris. "What just happened?"

"Exactly what the Master originally planned when he installed the program in the first place," he replied, also sounding dazed. "The TARDIS located a suitable body and transferred him." He looked over at the two women, a grin spreading across his face. "I guess he forgot to reprogram it when he changed the plan, never put in a failsafe or cancelled the original orders. Sloppy of him."

"Serves him right," Tegan muttered in response. "He was too bloody busy toying with us." Her gaze kept moving toward her stomach, then away, as if she could barely stand to look at herself. And she probably couldn't, Kyris guessed. The Master might be gone, but the legacy of pain he left behind lived on. Literally.

"So where did he go?" Ace demanded. "He doesn't get away that easily." She still looked mad enough to spit nails.

Kyris' gaze shifted involuntarily over to the smashed computer before he forced himself to look away. "I don't know," he admitted. "There doesn't seem to be any record of where the TARDIS sent him, not here." He worked the controls, then shook his head. "I can't tell, not yet. But I'll keep looking."

"It's my fault." Ace looked and sounded remorseful. "I'll bet that thing I smashed could have told us where the TARDIS sent him." She blew a heavy sigh and pressed her fingertips against her temples. That damned temper of hers; when would she learn to control it?

"I'm going to try and access the data from the main console, the one he reconnected," Kyris offered comfortingly. "He can't have just vanished into nowhere--"

"As long as we're rid of him, I don't care where he ended up." Tegan's tone was vicious. "I hope his TARDIS decided an Australian rancher's favorite sheep was the perfect body for him."

Kyris started to tell her he doubted the Master would have been that sloppy in setting his parameters, but stopped himself well before the words made it past his lips; now was not the time for either humor or literalism. "He has a lot of crimes to pay for," was all he did say.

They all looked up as an alarm suddenly blared. The view screen went blank, then returned to its original view, with one notable difference: a blue police call box, Earth, circa 1950s, now sat squarely on the grass. Ace gave a whoop of delight and raced out of the auxiliary control room, heading straight for the main TARDIS door.

Tegan was frantic. "He can't see me, not like this!" She tugged uselessly at her too-tight clothing. "Kyris, I have to get to my room, I have to hide this!" Her hands hovered over her distended abdomen, not quite touching it.

He frowned. "Hide this? You mean your pregnancy? Why?" He was honestly bewildered.

"Because I _have_ to. I can't let him see me like this," she repeated angrily. She made her way across the room, walking awkwardly, not quite sure of her new center of gravity. She brushed her bangs, now practically down to her nose, out of her eyes. She stared at her much longer nails with real distress. "I have to...to cover this up." She sounded frantic.

"Tegan, we can't hide your condition from my father." Kyris kept his voice calm, soothing, and, he hoped, free of pity she would no doubt curse him for. "If nothing else, Ace will have filled him in on all the details before he gets past the main console room. You can get changed, of course, but there's no point in hiding anything. No one's going to blame you," he added, zeroing in on the main reason for her sudden panic. "No one's going to condemn you. The Master used you, he was going to use your baby, so he's the only one to blame."

Tears welled in Tegan's eyes. "I know," she whispered. "I just don't know if I can face him, not just yet. I promise I'll meet you in the console room later, but right now I really need some time to myself, to get adjusted to this." She indicated her altered physical condition with a vague flutter of her hands. Her eyes widened suddenly, and she looked down at her stomach in renewed panic.

"What is it?" Kyris asked, hurrying to her side.

"I think the baby just moved," Tegan replied. She closed her eyes, then snapped them open almost immediately. "I have to get to my quarters," she mumbled. "I have to find something that'll still fit." She vanished down the corridor, while Kyris debated the wisdom of going after her. In the end, he decided to give her the time she requested, and set off instead to find Ace and his father.


	17. Playing Catch Up

**oOo**

"So you see, it's all a bloody great mess," Ace was saying, somewhat breathlessly, when Kyris caught up to them in the corridors leading back to the auxiliary control room. The doors remained marked and the corridors had mercifully stopped rearranging themselves, making the trip the fastest he had ever managed.

"So it would appear." It was wonderful to hear his father's voice again, doubly wonderful to see a none-the-worse-for-wear Noni walking with the others. "Kyris!" the Doctor caught sight of his son and smiled a relieved smile.

"I knew we'd find you!" Noni called out exultantly. She detached herself from Ace, with whom she had been walking arm-in-arm, and raced over to give Kyris a hug that threatened to squeeze the breath out of him. He hugged her back, his eyes never leaving those of his father.

To Kyris' unasked question, the Doctor smiled. "She's safe, she's fine, just like I told Ace." He hesitated. "You know where I took her..."

"To your first self," Kyris replied with a nod. "I know. I guess you felt you had to, but as you can see, we're both alive and well and I'm sure you know we'd like to take her back." Ace nodded a vigorous confirmation, echoed Noni.

"We can't be too hasty about such a decision," his father cautioned. As expected. "You have to tell me everything that happened first. In detail," he added, glancing at Ace with a wry smile. "Five minutes of run on sentences highlighting the events since you were kidnapped do not count as a full explanation." He frowned. "You might start with the fact that Tegan is alive and pregnant?" That had been the most confusing part of Ace's breathless account of their time on the Master's TARDIS.

Kyris glanced at Noni. Who glared right back at him, knowing immediately what he was thinking. "Oh no you don't! I'm not leaving without hearing about what happened! I can handle it, no matter how bad it gets."

"It gets very bad."

The bleak tones belonged to Tegan, who chose that moment to put in an appearance. She'd changed into an A-line dress that fell past her knees, not her usual style. That, coupled with its deep navy color, betrayed its probable origins in the Master's wardrobe room. In spite of its generous lines, it did very little to hide her obvious condition. "Hallo, Doctor. I wasn't going to come see you, but I changed my mind." Her chin jutted out. "I wasn't going to let what happened..." Her voice caught, then steadied. "I wasn't going to let what the Master did to me," she corrected herself, very deliberately, "keep me from seeing you." She managed a wry twist of the lips that passed for an attempt at a smile. "If I start running now, I'll never stop." Her voice held a slight tremor by the end of her carefully prepared speech, but her expression remained steady.

The Doctor's eyes were sympathetic. "Ace said you were pregnant, but she didn't tell me, uh, any other details. This is Noni, by the way. My friends Leela and Andred's daughter."

"Pleased to meet you," Tegan responded automatically. "I just wish it was under more pleasant circumstances." They'd been walking as they talked, and found themselves close to Ace and Kyris' room. "In here," she said abruptly, pushing the door open and stepping inside. "If you don't mind," she added belatedly as Ace followed her in.

"No problem," Ace reassured her as she plopped onto the bed. Kyris joined her there, while Noni chose the chair nearest the door. Tegan and the Doctor remained standing, and she spoke as if only to him. His face darkened as she told her story, while Noni responded with an initial gasp of shock followed by silence enforced by the hand she immediately clapped over her mouth. She'd said she could handle hearing what happened to the others, and now she had to prove it, even though all she felt like doing was finding the toilet and throwing up.

When Tegan fell silent, pale and trembling but head held high, the Doctor only made two comments: "I'm quite certain if we analyzed your food from your period of captivity, we'd find any number of fertility agents sprinkled in them. And I'd very much like to take a look at that room a little later, if you don't mind." Tegan nodded.

Kyris took up the narrative thread, periodically interrupted by Ace; relief had brought out an unexpected tendency to babble in her, at least in this case. When he described the field imprisoning Tegan and what the Master had done to her, Noni could no longer stand it; with a faint retching sound, she dashed for the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her.

She came back out, feet dragging, as Kyris was describing the energy field the Master had attacked him and Ace with. Ace patted the bed next to her, reaching out for Noni and offering a reassuring hug. She was quite pale, but offered a wan smile and turned her attention fully to Kyris and his continued explanation.

After sparing a glance to make sure his young traveling companion was going to be all right, the Doctor returned his attention to his son, his glance sharpening. "Describe it for me again," he ordered. "Don't leave anything out."

They went over it, slowly, with Tegan offering her perspective as well, but there wasn't much to go on. "There must be something in the TARDIS databanks," the Doctor finally said. "I'd better have a look. It wasn't directly connected to the Master's, er, 'specialized' program, so there should be some record of what he did." He raised an admonishing finger as Ace opened her mouth to object. "I will bring you to Susan only after I find out what the Master did to you. I doubt very much his only goal was to cause you immediate and short-lived pain. I find the residual weakness very telling, especially as it was also relatively short-lived."

"He was just trying to keep us from helping Tegan," Ace protested. Stridently.

"She was inside a TARDIS-generated force field," the Doctor reminded her. "They're invulnerable to almost everything, certainly anything you or Kyris could have done. No, he merely timed it for when you when you moved toward her. It was all part of the games was playing before he made his own move."

Ace looked mutinous, but Kyris took her hand in his, and she subsided. "I just want to see my daughter," she muttered.

"I know, so do I," Kyris agreed. "But my father's right; if the Master's done something to us, something I'm not detecting, then we need to know." His gaze turned inward.

Ace jumped to her feet, suddenly restless. She'd been patient, she'd give the Doctor the whole story, just like he asked, and now it was time. Time to do something, anything. As she launched into another argument with him about retrieving Susan, she failed to notice the troubled expression that passed over Kyris' face.

He stopped Ace's arguing with a raised hand and a simple "No." She subsided, unwillingly.

"Come on, Noni. I'll get you some tea," she said, with a final glare at the Doctor. Which he ignored. She took the younger girl's hand in hers and led her out of the room. Noni followed, docile enough, while Tegan made up her own mind.

"I'll take you there, now, so you can see it before you get too involved in figuring out what the Master did to Ace and your son." She had to go, now, while she was determined, otherwise she might never be able to face that prison. And it felt important to do so.

The Doctor glanced doubtfully at Kyris, who appeared to be mentally struggling with something. "Kyris? Do you mind?"

"No, go ahead," came the distracted response. "I'll meet you in the Console Room later."

The Doctor shrugged, then swept his arm toward the door. "After you."

Tegan moved, quickly, before she could change her mind.


	18. Laying the Past to Rest

**oOo**

The Doctor came to a stop in front of a metal door, one that was different to all the rest he'd seen on this TARDIS. With a glance at Tegan, who had been dragging her feet and was well down the corridor behind him, he pushed the door open. She remained in the hall as he examined the metal walls, the floors and ceiling, reluctantly edging closer until she was standing opposite the doorway, afraid to look in but unable to keep her eyes off him. She saw him carefully skirt the bed, not allowing so much as the edge of his jacket to touch it, then turned her eyes away.

But only for a moment; she couldn't help covertly studying him, in his newest body. She'd seen the Doctor regenerate once, early on, before she truly understood what it meant. Before she understood that it wasn't just a physical change, but a psychological one as well. He seemed different, which she had braced herself for, but not so different that she couldn't recognize him, glimpses of the man she'd traveled with, a certain way of holding his head or the way he so intently and single-mindedly examined her former prison.

The Doctor was muttering to himself, making rapid calculations and scribbling them down with a pencil stub on a page from a small notebook he produced from one of his pockets, his brolly hooked over one elbow. He appeared oblivious of her continued observation of his every move. "Yes, just as I suspected." He looked directly at her, startling her. "The particular alloys used here rendered you impervious to any kind of tracking device, completely blocked off your brainwaves and genetic signature. I doubt even the most intensive scan could have located you."

Tegan heard him, but found no comfort in his words; they only confirmed what she already knew. Instead, she found herself suddenly overwhelmed by the memories this room brought up. She was back, once again standing near the one place she'd sworn never to return to. The one place she never could seem to get away from. As when she'd brought Ace to see it, she was here voluntarily, but it was never going to be something she got used to.

"This is it. The room where I was raped." The words were out before she could stop them, and she hoped she didn't sound as pathetic to the Doctor as she did to herself; if there was one thing she couldn't bear it was the thought of being an object of pity.

He'd moved closer, at some point while she was fighting the past, was standing in front of her with a concerned look in his eyes. Unexpectedly, he reached for her hand, hesitating until she nodded her permission. His eyes held sympathy and nothing more. He squeezed her hand gently, raised it to his lips for a kiss, then hesitated again. She smiled at the cautious expression on his face. "It's all right, Doctor, I'm not skittish about being touched. Not by you," she admitted impulsively, then blushed.

"It's all right, Tegan," the Doctor said, deliberately echoing her words. "I'm not skittish about you, either."

"He didn't just hurt me physically." More words that came out before she could stop them, but the look of quiet expectation on his face made her throw caution to the wind; he already knew all the horrible things that had been done to her body, now was the time for her to share the Master's poisonous words as well, and by sharing them, hopefully free herself of their effects. "He said things, too. About me, about you..."

"Tell me." It was a request, not an order, and her kissed her hand again. Encouragingly. "I rather think it'll be something I'll need to clarify. Or refute." He placed a gentle arm around her, pulling her closer; with a sigh, she leaned her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes, surrendering to the temporary comfort of his embrace.

"He said, in essence, that I wasn't good enough for you, that I was too human for you to ever have feelings for," she whispered, ignoring the tears leaking from beneath her eyelids. "He knew how I felt about you, but he made me believe you didn't know. Or that you didn't care."

"Tegan, I always knew how you felt; I just never knew what to do about it," came his soft reply. He carefully wiped the tears away, brushing her cheeks with his fingertips. "I didn't know any way for us to be together the way you wanted--the way we both wanted," he amended. If there ever was a time for complete honesty, it was now. "I couldn't see how to make that happen without it ending up with you getting hurt. So I kept you at arm's length, and ended up hurting you anyway." He sounded bitter, and regretful, and Tegan's heart sang. Not that she enjoyed seeing him in pain, but because the Master's hurtful words had been nothing but that: hurtful words.

She'd unconsciously held her breath as the Doctor spoke, and let it out in another sigh as he fell silent. "I knew he was just trying to hurt me, to make it as bad for me as possible, but it felt like the truth, so I believed him."

"You were still that angry with me?" The Doctor sounded, not hurt exactly, but disappointed.

Tegan pulled out of his comforting embrace, the better to look at him. Directly, eye to eye. But still with his hand clutched in her own. "I was still that angry with myself," she corrected him. "For running away. For not giving you a chance. I felt stupid and ungrateful and even five years at home never changed that. So it was easy to believe what the Master told me, because I had come to think very similar thoughts over the years. And the longer he kept me here, without anyone coming after me, the longer I believed it was what I deserved."

"I never looked for you with the data retriever after Kyris told me you were dead." It was the Doctor's turn to admit a painful truth. "Romana's gadget was otherwise accurate; I confirmed the deaths Kyris shared with me by checking records. You have a death certificate, you were given a funeral...If I'd known you were still alive, Tegan, if only I'd checked on you again before giving up, all this might have been avoided." He glanced down at her stomach. "I'm sorry."

Her gaze followed his, then flinched away. "It's not your fault, Doctor. The Master made sure everyone thought I was dead, and he's the one who put his filthy hands on me, fed me drugs to make sure I ended up like this...And now it's too late," she said abruptly, the peace of the moment shattered as she contemplated her distended abdomen with an expression filled with loathing. "He's even made sure it's too late for me to get rid of this...thing he put in me."

The Doctor was distressed by her reaction. "Tegan, it's still your baby, too, no matter what the circumstances of its conception," he began, only to be cut off by her bitter laugh.

"Right. My baby." She pulled her hand away from his, clenching her fists. "The bastard child of one of the most evil men I've ever met, the product of rape. How could I ever love anything that came from that?" She rushed on before the Doctor could interrupt. "Besides, he only wanted to use this baby as a body; there was never any intention of the child being allowed to develop a personality, live a life of its own, so why should I have to take care of it for the rest of its life?" The hysteria was returning, edging her voice and bringing a tremble to her body.

The Doctor took her shaking hands firmly in his own, curled his fingers around hers until her fists reluctantly unclenched. "Tegan." He waited until he felt he had her attention, as much of it as she could spare. "You can't keep doing this to yourself. Try not to think of it as the Master's child," he urged. "Try thinking of it as..." Inspiration struck. "Try thinking of it as Nyssa's brother."

Tegan stared at him, her expression going from panicky to thoughtful. Unconsciously, she pulled her hands away, allowed them to settle on her stomach, palms exploring its rounded shape for the first time. "I'd forgotten," she whispered. "I'd forgotten it was Nyssa's father who's body he stole." She looked at him. "How could I have forgotten?"

"It was a long time ago and a great deal has happened since then. I'm sure you didn't actually forget, you just didn't need to remember it," was the Doctor's unhelpful response. "Until now, when it's important. When it's something that might help you remember that, no matter how the child was conceived, it's still a child. An innocent. _Your_ baby," he stressed.

"Will you take me to Terminus?" He blinked at the unexpected question. "I want to see Nyssa, talk to her about this. See how she feels. If she can accept this baby as her brother, then maybe I can, too."

"I'm sure I can manage it," he said cautiously. "But I'm not sure when. I want to run some tests on Kyris and Ace, see if I can pinpoint exactly what the Master did to them. Once I have the test results, I'll be able to cross-reference the findings with the TARDIS database and move forward from there."

Tegan nodded. "Right. Whatever you just said, you do it. I'll wait. At least for a while." She looked down at her stomach once more. "But not too long. I need to see Nyssa as soon as possible, Doctor."

He heard the unspoken panic in her voice, and responded to that as well as to her words. "I promise."

"And Doctor?" He looked over at her, one eyebrow raised inquisitively. "Thank you. For everything." The panic was finally under control as she smiled at him.

He leaned forward impulsively and kissed her. She returned the kiss, her lips clinging to his for a long moment, but she was the first to break it as she leaned back and put her hand on his chest. "All the reasons you had for keeping me at arm's length, I guess I understand them a little better now." But she was breathless, her cheeks flushed, and her could hear her increased heartbeat.

"And they still apply," he finished. Regretfully. His own hearts had sped up, his own breathing was labored, and it took a moment's concentration to bring himself back to normal.

"Right." But Tegan looked uncertain, so he tucked her hand in his arm and led her away from her former prison. He'd taken advantage of a momentary weakness, and she'd been the one to exhibit the strength to stop things before they went any further; he had to make sure she understood she'd made the right decision. No matter how fragile she seemed right now, she was still made of steel underneath, and he was relieved the Master hadn't permanently damaged her.

"Time to get back to the others," he said firmly. "I have to perform those tests quickly, before Ace and Kyris hijack this TARDIS or my own and go to find Susan without waiting to make sure they're not a danger to her."


	19. Hopeless Optimist

_A/N: Just a brief note to thank everyone for sticking with this lengthy soap opera of a story! I'm hoping to hear some more comments, to find out what people think of this histrionic epic, hint, hint!_

_---------------------------------------------------------_

**oOo**

Several hours passed before Kyris put in an appearance again. Ace had left him to his own devices while she concentrated her mothering skills on making sure Noni, who was only a few years younger than herself, was recovering from the indignity of getting sick. The Doctor and Tegan had briefly stopped by the kitchen, the Doctor heading for the Console Room at Ace's pointed glare. Tegan had reluctantly poured herself a glass of milk, making a face as she sipped what was obviously not her favorite beverage. She took it and a few stolen crackers with her to her room, swearing it wasn't just so she could hide out when pressed by Ace on the matter.

"I'm tired," she admitted. Both Ace and Noni noted how her hands kept straying back to her abdomen, instead of avoiding the bulge as she had before, just as they noted the new air of serenity she projected. Whatever she and the Doctor had found to discuss had apparently done wonders for her frame of mind. "I'm going to have a bit of a lie down. That's all." She left the room with a tired droop to her shoulders.

Noni, on the other hand, was full of energy; she appeared to have bounced back quite well. Her color had returned and she was talking a mile a minute when Kyris entered the room. She and Ace were sitting at the table, the half-empty package of crackers and two cups of tea between them while Noni filled her in on everything that had happened on Gallifrey after their disappearance. Kyris joined them, slipping onto the bench next to Ace, listening intently as Noni described her kidnapping.

"He was already in the house when we got back." She'd left the pram by the back door, hurriedly changed Susan's nappie and returned to the main room to find the Master waiting for her. Holding a weapon as he smirked at her startled reaction. She glowered at the memory. "I was holding Susan, so I couldn't even reach for a knife or try to kick the gun out of his hand."

Not that she'd let that stop her…

_As soon as Noni recognized the unwelcome visitor, shecradled Susan to her chest and turned to run. The sound of the weapon discharging stopped her in her tracks just as the energy bolt sizzled over her shoulder, singeing a few hairs on her head and sending the baby into a startled howl. The bolt smashed into the opposite wall, destroying a bundle of her mother's spears, scattering the remnants in every direction. She hunkered down, protecting the now screaming Patience with her own body, but was fortunately far enough away that none of the shattered debris reached them._

_A black-gloved hand reached down and yanked her to her feet, holding her by one elbow and shoving the barrel of the weapon, still warm from that first discharge, against not Noni's head but the baby's. "I have absolutely no compelling reason to keep her alive, not with her parents already serving as my hostages." He sounded like he meant it, and Noni risked a nod to show that she understood; she would give him no reason to use that weapon on the baby._

Not that she shared that particular memory with Ace and Kyris; she glossed over where exactly the weapon was aimed, hurrying past the threats the Master had made against their daughter. "At least there wasn't anyone else in the house," was all she did say.

_She was grateful the Master didn't linger; although she knew she and Patience were the only ones home, she was terrified one of her brothers or sisters would wander back after lessons the way they sometimes did, noisy and hungry and far too easy for the Master to harm. Nor did she dare try anything, not while the gun was still firmly pressed against Patience's dark wisps of hair. She took comfort in the fact that there would be no confusion as to whether she and the baby had left of their own volition; the blackened wall and wreckage spoke for themselves. The rest of the family would be alerted, and help would soon be on its way._

"_Where are you taking us?" she risked asking as the Master walked her quickly over to a ground conveyance he'd obviously stolen. There was blood on the driver's side of the bench-like seat, not quite dried, no doubt belonging to the unfortunate former owner of the vehicle. She shuddered, but the Master ignored it as he shoved her into the passenger side and sidled in next to her. She started to ask him again; he raised the weapon and she quickly shut her mouth._

"_Put this on." He reached under the seat with one hand and thrust a pair of shackles at her, watching as she fumbled one end onto her right wrist. She hesitated with the other end, looking uncertainly at Patience and then daring a glance at the Master. He moved like lightning, grasping the open end and attaching it to the turbulence handle built into the metal between the windshield and her own window. Once it was secure, he checked the other end, making sure it was on as tight as it could go, and she gritted her teeth as her wrist began to throb with pain. She was forced to lean slightly forward, and turned herself as much as she could in order to give Susan a more comfortable resting place. The baby's wails had died down to a series of tired whimpers, interrupted by the occasional hiccup, and Noni jiggled her softly, trying to further calm her._

_As she turned, her attention was arrested by the sight of the pram shoved awkwardly into the back of the ground vehicle. Her stomach lurched as she realized this meant the Master had long-terms plans for the baby, despite his threats. "You don't need an extra hostage, you already said so!" she blurted out without thinking. "Please, let me put her back in the house. I'll go with you wherever you tell me to; I swear I won't give you any problems!"_

_The Master had already started the vehicle; with a snarl, he raised his weapon, reversed it, and smashed its stock against her head. He softened the impact at the last second, refraining from knocking her into unconsciousness. The blow left her bleeding from a gash at the top of her forehead, and her cheek banged painfully into the window as her head bounced back. Patience was startled back into full-throated cries at the jostling she received. Noni tried to control her own cry of pain, but failed miserably. Blinking tears out of her eyes, she used her sleeve to try and stop the blood from dripping onto the baby's head._

"_Silence!" the Master ground out through gritted teeth. "We are on a rather tight schedule and I would rather not have to render you unconscious. Not when I need you to keep that brat calm." He glared at Patience. If he knew who she really was, that she was Susan, Noni realized, she'd be in even greater danger. "By the time we reach our destination, I expect you to have shut her up. Or else I will." _

_Noni managed to soothe Patience into a half-doze by the time they reached the Contemplation Colonnade, only a few clicks from their isolated family estate. She looked around for any sign of a TARDIS or the Doctor, but saw nothing. Apparently, they'd arrived ahead of him._

_The Master was silent as he hurried her out of the car, leaving her wrist shackled and pulling her along bythe otherend. He allowed her to lay Patience in the pram before shoving her in front of him, looking around alertly the entire time. _He suspects an ambush,_ Noni realized as she pushed the pram along the pristine marble pathway that led to the Colonnade. _Because it's exactly what he would do._ She'd hated him in the abstract before, for the pain he caused the Doctor and his family; now, she felt the burning flames of a more personal hatred growing in her hearts. She fought to keep it under control; for the baby's sake, she needed to keep her head._

_The one thing she feared the most, that the Master would take Patience away from her, never happened. He brought them to a bench, half-hidden between a group of close-set columns, shoved her onto the cold marble seat and attached the other end of the shackle to one of the slender poles holding the bench upright. She hunched forward, just as Patience woke up and started whimpering. The Master glared at her, and she reached into the pram awkwardly, one-handed and terrified of dropping the baby, who settled back down and nestled comfortably in the crook of Noni's free arm._

_The Master grunted his approval. "I am moving out of your range of vision, but I am not leaving. If you make any sound, any sound at all, I will be forced to kill you. Do you understand that?" Noni nodded sullenly. She understood, all right. She'd been right to associate the Master with an ambush, because that was exactly what he was setting up. And she'd played a part, telling the Doctor where Kyris and Ace had gone in response to a note he was purported to have sent. How could she have been so stupid? They were wrong to entrust the baby to her, this was all her fault..._

_There was a sound as of hurrying feet, and the Master melted into the lengthening shadows between two of the larger columns. One was a deep black, the other a vibrant blue. She could have unerringly picked out his choice of hiding place even if she hadn't seen him edge closer to the black one._

_She raised her head alertly at the sound of voices. The Doctor! He was there, trading barbs with the Master, demanding to know where his son and Ace were...and the Master was taunting him. She leaned closer, trying to hear them better, and inadvertently nudged Patience. Who promptly woke up and let out a distressed cry before Noni could stop her._

_Hearts thudding, she waited to see what the result of that slip would be. She was terrified the Master would make good on his threat. Patience fell silent after that first cry, and Noni held her breath as the Master raised his voice so she could hear him clearly: "He knows you're there, no need to keep the brat quiet." Then, in a softer tone: "Would you care to view my latest acquisitions?"_ _He must have intended those words for the Doctor. Noni braced herself for their appearance, which wasn't long in coming._

"_I'm sorry, Doctor, he was already in the house." Her voice was steady, but she could feel her lips trembling. "He forced me to bring Patience."_

More mockery, more threats, words that Noni barely listened to. Instead, she spent her time intently watching the two men, hoping the Master would make a mistake, drop his guard and give the Doctor an opening to wrestle the weapon away from him.

Until the Master's next words rang clearly to her distracted ears.

"_I intend to leave you with nothing, Doctor, not even your life."_

"_How very...unoriginal," was the Doctor's only comment. Noni struggled furiously with her bonds, subsiding only when Patience began to fuss in protest of her rough handling._

"_But what shall I do with my prisoners after you are gone?" the Master mused. He looked directly at Noni, who froze under that baleful stare but met his eyes defiantly. "Perhaps I'll raise Patience as my own, eh?" Noni flushed with a combination of rage and humiliation as he ran a clinical eye over her body. "Or perhaps I'll simply raise your grand-child to be a servant to my own. Perhaps seeing your domestic circumstances has awoken a longing for family in my own breast." His tone was mocking. "She's young enough to give me as many heirs as I might want, don't you think? And lovely enough to make it a pleasure rather than a chore to break her to my bed."_

_Before Noni could react to those hateful words, another voice rang out, a familiar voice, and she almost sobbed with relief as she heard her mother speak. "Or I will kill you."_

"She didn't realize we wouldn't be able to find you if she killed the Master," Noni concluded earnestly. "Or she never would have done it, I promise. She was just worried about me..."

"And she had every right to be," Kyris said, his voice reassuring.

Ace muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "served him right, too" before offering her own reassurances to Noni. "What's done is done. Now if the Doctor will just get moving on finding out if the Master did something to us that could hurt Susan, this can all finally be over."

"We never stopped looking for you." Noni seemed to think Kyris and Ace were the ones who needed reassuring. She looked at them both, her face solemn. "I never wanted to leave Susan with _him_, but the Doctor--"

"I know," Kyris replied with a smile. He couldn't help but be amused by Noni's obvious dislike for his father's first self. "Thank you again for taking care of her for us." His voice cracked on the last word, and Ace reached up to take his hand in hers.

The Doctor decided to choose that moment to make his reappearance. "Right, time for some tests." He rubbed his hands together briskly. "Come along, you two, I've found the medical center. Noni, if you'd care to assist, I could use an extra pair of hands and I don't want to disturb Tegan's nap."

She found it charming that he'd obviously peeked in on his former traveling companion and found her sleeping. "Of course," was all she said, but she couldn't help the grin that spread across her face. This was finally it; if they found nothing wrong with Kyris and Ace, then they could get Susan back, bring Tegan to Earth or maybe even to Gallifrey to have her baby, and everyone would finally be where they belonged.


	20. Altered States

**oOo**

"What do you mean, a few days?" No one was surprised by Ace's outburst.

The Doctor had just informed them that was how long he expected it to take before he fully collated the results of the extensive tests he'd run on Ace and Kyris. The ones he'd run on Tegan had been more routine, to reassure them all that the temporal meddling the Master had performed hadn't done any additional damage to the mother-to-be or her baby. Those he had encouraging results for, to her relief. Ace's too, once she got past her sullen anger at yet another roadblock to her reunion with her daughter. She really was glad to know that Tegan and her baby were all right; she just didn't think she could wait another few minutes to find out about her own, let alone a few days.

"Ace, I promise you, if everything turns out all right, I'll bring you to her myself, not five minutes after I left her with me. My first self," he clarified, although everyone knew exactly who he was talking about. "Please, just try to be..."

"Be what? Patient?" The Doctor winced at Ace's tone of biting sarcasm. "That's all we've been since you got here."

"And I'm afraid you'll have to continue being patient," the Doctor replied, with a bit of ginger in his own voice. They were gathered in the kitchen, all of them: Ace, stalking back and forth with a murderous gleam in her eye; Kyris, standing near the door with arms tightly folded across his chest, his eyes following Ace's every move; Tegan, sitting with a cup of tea in her hands, looking uncomfortable; Noni, almost as tense as Ace, standing in front of the stove with a spatula in one hand while a pan of eggs burned, unnoticed, behind her; and the Doctor, seated across from Tegan, also watching Ace.

"Why? Why can't we just leave?" Ace's tone was belligerent, confrontational, but everyone could hear the desperation behind every word.

"Because there are some anomalies in your DNA." That stopped her short; she paused in her endless pacing, staring at him. Satisfied he had their full attention, the Doctor stood up, walked deliberately over to the stove, reached past Noni and turned off the burner before continuing. "Whatever the Master did to you, it wasn't just to hurt you, or to keep you away from Tegan."

"He did something to our DNA? Like what?" Ace demanded. "Made us poisonous to Susan, made it so we'll go balmy and try to hurt her or kill her as soon as we see her?" She'd always had an impressive imagination; there wasn't a single person in the room who was currently glad of that fact.

Everyone was grateful when the Doctor stopped her. "I don't know. All I can tell you right now is that it appears he modified your DNA." He wasn't sure if he should continue, but he couldn't leave it there. "There are some other things I'm concerned about as well," he admitted. Reluctantly.

"Other things? Like what?" Kyris sounded tense.

His father went very still, then slowly turned his head so his eyes met those of his son. "I believe you know one of them," he said, softly, regretfully.

"What do you mean?" Ace demanded, moving anxiously to Kyris' side. His head was bowed, and she touched his shoulder gently. "Kyris, what is it?"

"I haven't been able to use my healing abilities since the Master attacked us." The admission was quietly made, but everyone heard it and reacted with dismay. "I thought it was some kind of shock, a temporary condition, but now..."

"Now I believe it to be a side-effect of whatever the Master did to you," his father continued when Kyris faltered to a stop. "I cannot believe he would ever have destroyed so valuable a commodity on purpose, no matter how desperate he was at the time. And from what you've all told me, up until the TARDIS sent him away, he did not appear to be that desperate."

Ace hugged Kyris fiercely. "So a few days. If that gives us some answers, I reckon I can wait that long." _But no longer,_ her eyes were saying.

The Doctor hesitated, glancing at Tegan before speaking again. "If you don't mind, I'd like to take Tegan somewhere while we're waiting. There's nothing I can do at this point," he added hurriedly, lest Ace start ranting again. "It's a matter of the TARDIS compiling the data; there's quite a bit of it to get through, and nothing for me to do until it's done."

"Fine." Ace waved a hand dismissively. "We'll see you when you get back."

"I want your word that you won't take the Master's TARDIS and go after Susan yourselves," he admonished them, but he kept his gaze on Kyris. Who nodded, albeit reluctantly. The Doctor allowed himself to relax; even if Ace tried something impulsive, Kyris would reign her in. He knew how to keep his eyes on the prize, even when Ace allowed her focus to stray. Even facing a loss of this magnitude, his child and his healing abilities, he remained stoic. Waiting for the final results, which they both knew, deep in their souls, would not be good.

"Thank you." That was Tegan, speaking to Ace and Kyris. "This is something I have to do, or I'll never be able to come to terms with this." She indicated her stomach, then looked back at the Doctor. "Can we go now?"

He nodded, taking one last look at the other three. Ace and Kyris were still standing there, her head on his shoulder and their arms around each other's waists, but Noni had slipped quietly out of the room. The Doctor applauded her instincts; the young parents needed some time alone together. He offered Tegan his hand. She took it gratefully and followed as he led her out of the Master's TARDIS and into his own.


	21. Old Friends and New

**Hospital Station _Terminus_**

"Administrator?"

The woman to whom the question was addressed looked up briefly from the mound of electronic files on her desk. "Boreon," she acknowledged her assistant with a weary smile.

The 30ish man with the red hair and old-fashioned spectacles perched on the end of his nose hesitated by the door, looking over his shoulder before returning his attention to her. "There are some…people…to see you." His normally soothing tones were pitched a little higher than she'd ever heard outside of announcing a full-scale invasion. Which, for the record, had only happened once during her five-year tenure, when Terminus, Inc. tried to forcibly retake control of the station. Boreon, a recovered victim of Lazar's Disease, had helped repulse the invaders and played a large part in drafting the current agreement that left Terminus a fully autonomous research and medical station. Terminus, Inc. had to be satisfied with taking in a share of the profits the station suddenly started making as its reputation--and that of its Administrator--grew.

Nyssa frowned. "Do they have an appointment?" Normally she despised the bureaucratic process, but today she was literally buried in work. No, on a good day she was buried; today she was overwhelmed. Whipping Terminus into shape was still an on-going process. A never-ending process, it sometimes seemed.

Boreon shook his head, and she realized her normally unflappable assistant was looking a bit flustered. It piqued her interest; she'd never seen a situation Boreon couldn't handle. "No, no appointment. But," he hesitated, looked over his shoulder again, then looked back at her. "He said to tell you it's the Doctor. And Tegan; just that name and title, no other infor--"

Before Boreon could even come close to finishing, Nyssa had risen to her feet so abruptly she sent her chair flying backward, nearly tipping it over in her haste. She ignored the chair as it teetered precariously before settling itself back on all four legs, moving quickly toward the door, a huge smile on her face.

Boreon jumped out of her way as she rushed past him, even more confused than when the two strangers had appeared at his work station, as if from nowhere. He'd certainly never seen them before, and his photographic memory ensured that he knew the faces of everyone on the station. No ships had docked, he'd already met all the visitors and temporary workers brought by the last ship, and yet there they were. Standing there, waiting politely for him to notice them.

He peeked through the door, watching in amazement as the normally staid and serious Administrator of Medical Station Terminus jumped and squealed like a young girl, hugging the shortish man with the hat jammed on top of his head, then turning to the dark-haired pregnant woman with another squeal of delight, hugging her as well and asking a rapid fire series of question obviously related to her condition. She threaded her arms through those of the two visitors and walked them out of Boreon's office without a backward glance.

Boreon stared after them. His communications device made a loud buzzing noise, and he automatically crossed the room and answered it. "Administrator's Office." He paused, only half-hearing the person on the other end requesting to speak to Administrator Nyssa. "I'm sorry, the Administrator isn't available right now." He closed the connection without bothering to wait for the other person's response, then moved to his keyboard. "Administrator Nyssa is on personal leave for the remainder of the day," he typed in, hesitated, then erased "for the remainder of the day" and replaced it with "until further notice." He hesitated again, then sent the message after adding: "Please direct all inquiries to the Assistant Administrator." He had a feeling Nyssa wouldn't mind.

**oOo**

"All right, we've arrived. Now please, fill me in on all the details!" Nyssa ushered the Doctor and Tegan (pregnant? How? By whom?) into her private quarters, stopping short as she realized they weren't alone. "Oh, Tyrel, I'm so sorry, I didn't realize you were home!"

Her husband rose to his feet, startled by his wife's unexpected presence in the living space they had shared for the last year. "Nyssa? Is everything all right?" It was the middle of the day, and she wasn't due home until well into the evening. Or later, if some last-minute emergency cropped up. He himself was home only to grab a quick bite to eat before heading back into what his wife insisted on calling "the trenches." Well, and perhaps to take a quick nap as well…

Nyssa quickly crossed the small living room and kissed him. Then she turned back to the two strangers who had accompanied her. She put her hand on his shoulder. "This is my husband, Tyrel Oroleon. He's our Chief Surgeon." Her voice rang with pride.

Tyrel offered his hand, and the strange man took it, beaming in apparently genuine pleasure. "Pleased to meet you, Dr. Oroleon. I share your title, although not your medical skill. And this young lady is Tegan Jovanka." She murmured a hello from her position by the door. The Doctor had followed Nyssa into the room, but Tegan was still uncomfortably carrying the weight of all she had to share with her friend, and found herself non-plussed by the presence of Nyssa's husband. He'd been nothing more than a vague possibility mentioned by Ace, until now.

The reality of him, she had to admit, was quite striking. He was quite a bit taller than Nyssa, probably over six feet in height, slender and dark-haired, with beautiful green eyes and dimples to die for. And a doctor to boot. Looks, brains, the whole package. Tegan was impressed, and just a touch jealous.

Tyrel felt his eyebrows shooting toward his forehead as he realized who his wife's unexpected visitors were. "Tegan? And the Doctor? _The_ Doctor?" he repeated. "Nyssa's Doctor?" He grinned broadly. "I have to admit, I never expected to meet you; Nyssa seemed to think you wouldn't be paying us a visit any time soon!" He indicated the sofa behind him. "Please, do sit down; would anyone like some tea?"

"That would be lovely," Tegan replied, but Tyrel heard something in her voice that made him hesitate.

Nyssa must have heard it too. "I'll help you with the tea things," she offered, tugging on her husband's hand and leading him toward the kitchen. "Do sit down, Tegan, you must be exhausted after traveling all the way here from…well," she laughed, "from wherever you've traveled from to get here! We won't be a moment."

As soon as the kitchen door closed behind them, she turned to her husband for a fierce hug. "Tyrel, I hate to do this to you, but…"

"But you're kicking me out," he finished for her, kissing her lightly on the nose. Which she promptly wrinkled at him. "I get the feeling this isn't just a social visit; your friend Tegan seems very ill at ease, and I'd like to think it isn't just from the shock of meeting me for the first time."

"I should hardly think so," his wife responded, kissing him on the lips, grateful for his understanding. "You generally make a good first impression. I didn't know you'd be here, or I would have contacted you before bringing them here."

"I was near this end of the station, working on a consult, so I thought I'd just pop in for a bite before heading back over to the hospital," he explained. "If I'd known we would be hosting such celebrated guests, I would have tidied up a bit!"

Their quarters, as always, were immaculate, so she ignored that comment, and the joking tone in which it was spoken. "We just need some time so they can tell me the real reason for their visit. But I promise it'll be safe to come back for dinner."

"Shall I bring something along?" About a year into Nyssa's overhaul of the station, a sort of promenade had sprung up in one of the disused sections, initially featuring a sort of hodge-podge of trader's booths and snack kiosks, but now consisting of a rather better selection of shops and food vendors. Including several restaurants that specialized in high-end take-away meals.

Nyssa nodded. "From Doosie's, I think, if you don't mind. And if you get stuck at work, just have someone leave a message here." She caught his arm as he headed for the rear entrance. "Tyrel, thank you. I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important."

He kissed her nose again, chucked her playfully under the chin and caught her in his arms for a quick embrace. "I know. You fill me in with the parts you can later. I'll just have to deluge the Doctor with impertinent questions at dinner."

She laughed, watching as he left, then turned her attention to the tea things. Her guests were waiting.

**oOo**

"So that was the husband, was it?" The Doctor asked as he rose to his feet. He'd taken the seat nearest the side of the sofa where Tegan was now sitting. Nyssa placed the tea things carefully on the low table in front of the sofa and nodded in response to his question. "Congratulations; he seems a decent sort."

"High praise, coming from you," Nyssa replied dryly. She looked him over with a critical eye, knowing he was studying her as well. She knew what he and Tegan were seeing: the young girl they'd left behind had matured, the untamed curls now demurely restrained in a loose bun at the back of her neck, a sober uniform taking the place of the rather flamboyant outfits from her travels on the TARDIS, possibly the beginnings of lines around her eyes composed equally of stress and laughter. More laughter than stress since her marriage to Tyrel, granted, but lines nonetheless. Tegan looked older, too, but aside from the obvious changes wrought by pregnancy, despite the longer hair and modest clothing, she was still the woman who had been like an older sister to the orphaned Trakenite.

The Doctor's newest incarnation looked older, seemed a bit shorter and less wiry than the one she remembered, with lines in his face and a streak of gray in his dark locks, what she could see of them beneath his hat. "I see you've gone and regenerated again; which Doctor are you now?"

"I'm Number 7," he replied with a light shrug. "You know me; change is just part of my life."

"A little too much change," Tegan muttered, and Nyssa immediately sat down next to her, taking her friend's hand in hers. Tegan hugged her, and Nyssa returned the hug, glancing at the Doctor over Tegan's shoulder, concern in her eyes.

"Shall I start, Tegan?" The Doctor's voice was gentle, and Nyssa frowned. Just as she'd suspected, something was wrong.

"Tyrel had to go back to work, he just stopped by for lunch. He'll be rejoining us for dinner," Nyssa explained, noting the relief that quickly passed over Tegan's face. "He's quite looking forward to speaking with you both; I rather suspect he's itching to get his hands on medical information from a real live Time Lord!" She tried to keep her tone light, but sobered as soon as she saw Tegan flinching at her words. "I'm sorry, I've said something distressing." She took her friend's hand again. "Please, tell me what's wrong."_ Let me help._

"Perhaps I'd better start by explaining some…rather startling changes to my family situation," the Doctor began.

**oOo**

A half-hour later, Nyssa felt a headache coming on, but ignored it, too fascinated by what she was being told to take even the time to fetch a pain reliever. The Doctor had a son with a former companion, and the Doctor's son had a daughter with a current companion. "So you're a grandfather now?" she asked.

The Doctor nodded, then reconsidered. "Well, actually I've been a grandfather the entire time I've known you, Nyssa. You never met Susan, but Tegan did, as an adult in the Gallifreyan Death Zone." He paused. "I just never knew Susan's exact lineage, because it wasn't safe for me to know. Until now."

Nyssa's head was spinning, but she knew this was all merely background information. Gallifreyan Death Zone? She'd have to ask about _that_ one later. "I gather there's some kind of complication, or else you'd have just taken your son and Ace to rejoin their daughter."

"Exactly." The Doctor managed to sound pleased at her immediate grasp of the situation and unhappy about the situation itself at the same time. All in the intonation of a single word.

"How can I help?"

The Doctor produced a data chip from one pocket. "If you wouldn't mind, I'd appreciate it if you could analyze this for me." His eyes closed for less than a second, then snapped back open. "I believe the Master has altered their DNA, but I'm not sure to what purpose." Impulsively, Nyssa reached across Tegan and squeezed his hand. He smiled, a weary smile, and she knew he was doing what he always did; hiding his pain in order to keep it from overwhelming him. "I've got the TARDIS working on it and I have some preliminary findings, not to mention a few suspicions of my own, but I'd appreciate an extra set of eyes. Especially eyes in charge of a medical facility."

Nyssa accepted the chip, folding it carefully into her palm. "My biotechnical skills, rusty though they might be, are at your disposal. I'll have a look at this just as soon as you tell me the rest of the story. The part," she added, turning to Tegan with compassion in her voice and eyes, "you obviously don't want to tell me."

The Doctor rose to his feet, stretching casually, but his own gaze was fixed on Tegan as he announced: "If you don't mind, I'll leave you two to chat while I go have a look around, see what kind of changes you've made to this old station over the past five years." Old was an understatement, since Terminus had actually started life as a gigantic time machine, one that had been responsible for the Big Bang.

Tegan looked panicked, but he nodded encouragingly. "You and Nyssa have a great deal to talk about, and I suspect it will be easier for you if I'm not underfoot."

Tegan subsided back onto the sofa; she hadn't realized she'd half-come to her feet. "I guess." She sounded reluctant, but resigned, and so the Doctor left.

"I'm listening," was all Nyssa said.

Taking a deep breath, Tegan began to speak.


	22. No Good At GoodBye

**oOo**

The Doctor made his way back to Nyssa and Tyrel's quarters a few hours later. He raised his hand to knock when he heard Nyssa's voice from behind him. "Hullo, Doctor."

"Hullo!" He turned to face her. "I thought you were still inside." He'd been gone several hours, longer than he'd realized, and had spent the last fifteen minutes finding his way back to the nondescript door that led to Nyssa and Tyrel's quarters. Not that he was lost, exactly; he would vigorously defend his right to not immediately be able to return to a place he'd only seen once, should anyone challenge him on it.

"I wanted to take your data chip down for analysis," she explained. "It seemed the sort of thing I shouldn't put off till the last moment. And Tegan needed a bit of a lie down."

"Of course." He stepped back to give her room as she reached for the handle of the door. Her fingers tightened on it, then loosened as she turned to look at him. He looked back, cocking his head inquisitively. "What is it?"

"She's taking it better than I would have thought." Nyssa spoke in hushed tones, although she knew how difficult it was to hear things on the other side of the door. Unless Tegan had her ear pressed up against it or unless Nyssa started shouting, her conversation with the Doctor was and would remain private. "It's almost beyond belief, that the Master would do something like that."

"I've never underestimated his capacity for evil," the Doctor began, but Nyssa shook her head.

"Neither have I." Matter-of-fact words from a woman whose entire family, whose entire world, had been destroyed by the Master's evil. "I just would never have believed he'd dirty his hands in so..."

She groped for the word, and the Doctor supplied it. "So _personal_ a way?"

Nyssa nodded. "Exactly. It seems more in character for him to have opted for a technological solution to creating a viable fetus and force-aging it to suit his needs. Such technology exists, after all; he might even have come here and made me do it, if he'd wanted to."

"He did it this way to cause maximum pain to the maximum number of people," the Doctor replied softly, but his eyes were hard. Diamond hard, tritanium hard. "And in that, he succeeded." He fell silent, and Nyssa hesitantly reached for the door handle. "Well. Time to face the music, eh?"

He waited until she opened the door, then followed her inside.

Tegan was sitting on the sofa. "Thanks for the use of the bed," she said to Nyssa, but her attention was on the Doctor. "Did you tell him?"

She shook her head. "We just got back," she hedged as she sat down next to her friend. "Shall we tell him now?"

Tegan nodded, then looked up at the Doctor, waiting expectantly across from the low table that separated them. "I'm staying here."

The Doctor stared at her, surprised. "Don't you want to go home?"

She shook her head, and Nyssa slipped a supportive arm around her friend's shoulder. "We've talked it over, Doctor. Everyone on Earth thinks Tegan is dead. Her friends and family have already mourned her, and it would be very difficult to explain not only why she's alive but also the circumstances of her pregnancy. I'm sure I don't have to point out to you how much easier it will be for Tegan if she's living on a medical station when she has her baby, especially since the father wasn't from Earth." She smiled. "Besides, for selfish reasons, I would like very much to be a part of my brother's life."

Of course. Nyssa had reacted to Tegan's news exactly as the Doctor had hoped. "If you're sure?" he asked Tegan, fighting a sudden surge of disappointment that she wouldn't be returning to his TARDIS with him, that he wouldn't be escorting her home after he settled the business with his son and Ace.

She nodded. "One hundred percent."

He turned his attention back to Nyssa. "And Tyrel doesn't mind?"

"Tyrel thinks it's a smashing idea." Tyrel himself stepped out of the kitchen, holding a loaded dinner plate in each hand. He placed them on the table, and everyone sniffed appreciatively at the delicious aroma. "Tyrel has been trying to get his wife to at least act as if she has a life outside her office and her duties to the station."

"I did take the time to marry you," she pointed out with a smile. She gave Tegan an encouraging squeeze before walking over to hold the door for her husband as he ducked back into the kitchen, only to reemerge with two other plates. "Besides," Nyssa continued, returning her attention to the Doctor, "it's not as if Tegan will be sharing our living quarters."

"And now Nyssa will have someone to fuss over besides the patients. And me," Tyrel added cheerfully. He poured glasses of wine, including a small one for Tegan. "Gather round, everyone; dinner is served." He helped Tegan to her seat while the Doctor joined them. "Only one glass for you tonight."

"Thank you." Tegan decided she liked Nyssa's husband, and not just because of the dimples. He'd been given only the barest sketch of the circumstances surrounding her pregnancy, but had whole-heartedly embraced the thought of her joining them on Terminus.

The Doctor remained standing beside his chair, obviously not entirely convinced. "Are you absolutely certain?" he pressed.

She nodded. "It's what I want, Doctor." She sipped her wine and deliberately changed the subject. "Now. What exactly are we eating? I don't think I recognize any of this, but it smells fantastic!"

The conversation remained casual until the meal was finished. Tyrel insisted on doing the clean-up, leaving the other three the privacy of the main room.

Tegan and Nyssa were sitting next to each other when Tegan chose to take up the thread of their earlier conversation. "I need to be with someone who can remind me why I shouldn't hate my own child." Her voice was subdued, a bit anxious. "Someone who'll love him unconditionally." Her voice dropped to a near whisper. "In case I can't."

She was being painfully honest, and the Doctor appreciated how much that honesty was costing her. "It would be so much easier to just lie to myself," she continued, as if reading his thoughts. "To lie to everyone and say I'm going to be fine, but the truth is I don't know if I'll be fine or not. I was still raped, this is still the Master's child, and he's still out there, somewhere. I want to be with people I know, people who can help keep us safe, who understand the danger."

"I doubt very much the Master would still want contact, since he's already been placed into a new body somewhere," the Doctor replied gently. "I don't think you have to worry about him coming after you, or trying to take the baby away..."

Tegan's smile was sad. "I'm not worried about him taking the baby," she said, dropping her gaze. Nyssa put a comforting arm around her shoulders. She looked up suddenly, straightened her posture. "I'm worried that if he did show up, I'd let him. It's going to take a long time for me to truly accept this baby."

"And I'll be there to help remind her why she has every reason to love him," Nyssa added, her own voice a little uneven, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "So you see, Doctor, this really is for the best."

He studied them, these two women who had traveled with his first his fourth and then his fifth selves. He remembered his almost paternal feelings toward Nyssa, his pride at her intellect, her ability to cope when everything and everyone she'd ever known was destroyed. He also remembered his somewhat more disturbing feelings toward Tegan, unexpressed desires and a continued awareness that she had gotten under his skin the way no other woman had since Romana had left him. Even six months pregnant, even haunted by the evil done to her in the name of the Master's unending desire to extend his life beyond its natural boundaries, she was beautiful. _And on that note, I had best take my leave,_ he told himself wryly. _There's reminiscing and there's reminiscing, and regrettably I have no time for either sort._

Ace and Kyris were still waiting for him to discover what the Master had done to them, and Noni was no doubt just as eager for him to return so she could see Susan again. She stubbornly held to that desire, especially now that his granddaughter's parents had been found.

"Very well, then," he found himself saying, clearing his throat uncomfortably. "If you're both sure..." Identical nods greeted his words. "I'd better go. I still have a few loose ends to tie up."

"You can't leave, not yet!" Nyssa exclaimed, jumping to her feet. "I have some information for you about what the Master did to Kyris and Ace." It wasn't good news, either; he could tell by the way her face clouded over. She disappeared into another room for a moment; when she returned, she was holding two nearly identical data chips. "This is your data, and this," she held up the second chip, "shows the results of what we discovered."

No, definitely not good news. He took the chips from her, slipping them into his jacket pocket. "Thank you."

"I wish it could be better news," she replied simply. She and Tegan both stood up, and Nyssa hugged the Doctor good-bye. "It was good to see you again, Doctor, even if it's a you I've not met before," she whispered before planting a soft kiss on his cheek. "I hope things work out for your son and Ace."

"So do I," he murmured in response, but his attention was already on Tegan, even before Nyssa stepped away from him, from them. Allowing them their own moment of privacy as she murmured something about seeing the Doctor in the kitchen when he was ready to leave. They watched her pass through the door, then returned their attention to each other.

"So. I guess…this is it. Good-bye." She'd never been good at good-bye. Ever. No matter what the reason, no matter who was leaving. She hadn't said a proper good-bye to Ace or Kyris or Noni, but it was too late for that now.

"I suppose it is." He wasn't going to do it, he wasn't going to try and change her mind, and she felt the tiniest bit of disappointment. Just like last time, he was taking her at her word, letting her go, respecting her terms. Just like last time, all she wanted was for him to talk her out of it. There was always a part of her that didn't want to let him go.

The Doctor's smile was sad as he leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. "Good-bye, Tegan. If you don't mind, I'd like to come back after the baby is born and see how things are going."_ To see if you've changed your mind and want to go home,_ he really meant.

"Of course. Please tell everyone how grateful I am for everything they did for me. Even Ace," she added with a forced grin. "Let her know I'm not mad at her for making me tell her what the Master did to me, will you? I hate to leave her thinking I'm holding a grudge."

The Doctor nodded. "Of course."

She started to speak, to spill out the rest of her regrets and apologies, then stopped. They knew how she felt about them. Even Noni, even Ace. Anyone who survived the Master the way they had was connected by a bond even stronger than the bond forged by traveling with the Doctor. "Safe journey," was all she did say, then surprised them both by hugging him.

He returned the hug tightly, letting go when her own grip finally slackened. She kissed his cheek, and he turned and walked into the kitchen without a backwards glance. It was safest that way.


	23. Countdown

**The Doctor's TARDIS, One Hour Later**

The Doctor pulled the two data chips out of his pocket and regarded them silently. He looked over at the TARDIS console; as expected, its computations had come to an end and the results were ready for him to examine. He set the coordinates to the moon currently housing the Master's TARDIS, re-pocketed the data chips and headed for his quarters. He would look at Nyssa's results first, then compare them to his own. Then, if necessary, he would compare both sets of results, separately and combined, against the data run through the Master's TARDIS.

Because you just never knew.

**The Doctor's TARDIS, Two Hours Later**

The results were, as Nyssa warned, not good. Nor were the results from the analysis by his TARDIS. He let out a curse that would have impressed even Ace, who was quite proud of her collection of unacceptable words and phrases from multiple cultures and eras of both Earth and other worlds they'd visited. "Chin up, Doctor," he muttered to himself. "You still have to combine the data."

**The Doctor's TARDIS, Two and a Half Hours Later**

The results didn't get any better. Nor did the Doctor's temper.

He felt his TARDIS arrive as he pondered the results. He stood up, heading directly for the Console Room. "One more set to correlate," he muttered. "Then we shall see what we shall see."

He refused to admit defeat.

"It's early days, yet," he admonished himself as he passed through the TARDIS door and trudged the half-mile to the Master's TARDIS.

**Uninhabited Moon of Gas Giant Nmbrama VII, Five Minutes Later**

"I have to check on the data," he said to Ace and Kyris as they ran out to meet him. He made deliberate eye contact, even though the last thing he wanted to see was the hope in their eyes fading to disappointment.

He continued walking, even though they'd stopped and were, no doubt, staring after him. "I had Nyssa look the test results over for me at the medical facility on Terminus, but I have to check her preliminary conclusions against the tests I left for the Master's TARDIS to analyze. I'll be a few hours."

He could feel their disappointment, just as he could feel Noni's disappointment when she greeted him at the TARDIS door. He repeated the same words to her that he'd said to his son and Ace, passing quickly through the Console Room and heading directly for the auxiliary control room. The Master's modifications had rendered the main console unusable to anyone not in possession of the alien technology he'd appropriated. Someday he might be inclined to try and unravel that particular mystery. But not today.

**The Master's TARDIS, Three Hours Later (Give Or Take)**

"So. Are we a danger to Susan, or what?"

Ace, of course. Kyris was no one's doormat, but Ace would always have the first word in any confrontation.

"You're not a danger." That was the easy part. Before they could do more than offer each other relieved hugs, the Doctor plowed on. "But you can't be with her, either."

"What? Why not?" "I don't believe you!" "Tell us."

Ace and Noni's outraged shouts almost completely obscured Kyris' quiet question, but the Doctor heard it. Just as he saw the anger in Ace's eyes, the disbelief in Noni's, and the sudden despair in his son's.

He spoke quietly, emotionlessly, because to do otherwise would be to give in to his own despair, his own sense of failure. Because what the Master had done, the Doctor did not believe could be undone. "He's altered you both on a genetic level, manipulated your DNA just as I suspected." Now for the hard part… "He's made it so that you are permanently out of temporal phase with Susan. I'm so sorry," he added, but got no further before a furious Ace interrupted.

"What does that mean, permanently out of temporal phase?" She glared at the Doctor. "What did he do to us?" Her voice was pitched perilously high, and Kyris reached over to touch her arm. Gently, but she flinched as if she'd been struck.

"He's manipulated our DNA on a quantum level so that we cannot exist at the same temporal location as Susan," Kyris put in quietly. Noni had retreated as far away from the console as she could, shaking her head, holding her hand to her mouth to stifle the sobs. She'd studied the theory behind such forbidden temporal sciences in her Temporal Ethics classes, but had never expected to come face to face with the results of such illicit tampering. Not to her friends, not like this…the sobs overwhelmed her and she sank to her haunches, burying her face in her hands.

"Not only Susan," the Doctor put in. If the first part was painful, this was downright cruel. "Because of that tampering, the two of you have been rendered effectively infertile."

"Of course." Kyris sounded far more in control of himself than the Doctor suspected he actually was. "He's made it so we're out of phase with anyone sharing our combined DNA, right? Is that it?"

His father nodded unhappily. "Unfortunately, yes. That is exactly what he's done."

Kyris looked at Ace, his face suspiciously blank, his voice controlled. "So we'll never be able to have any other children, not with each other." The Master had robbed them of their daughter and their future at the same time.

"Fix it." That was Ace once again. While Noni sobbed and silent tears slipped down Kyris' cheeks, her eyes were dry, fierce. Unflinching. "You know what he did, now fix it."

"Ace, I don't think I can. I know what the results of the Master's tampering are, but I don't know how he did it." More words he wished he didn't have to speak. "All I can tell is that you two are vibrating on a unique quantum level, specifically one that is unable to match the exact quantum reality of anyone who shares your combined genes."

"What, so you're saying that even if you take us on the TARDIS right now and go to Earth, we won't get there?" Ace's voice was full of disbelief, her eyes hard.

"That's a distinct possibilty," the Doctor agreed. "But not the only one. I'm not entirely certain as to how it would work; as best I can tell, if I try to bring you to her in my TARDIS, it will be as if you literally vanished into the space between one second and the next. And you'll stay that way until I remove the TARDIS from that particular time and space." He had never felt so helpless, not even when Adric died. "Another possibility would be that the TARDIS will simply find itself unable to materialize in the correct era. In any era where Susan exists."

"Then work backwards, do that reverse engineering thing." Ace's voice remained implacable. "Find a way to fix this, Doctor."

He looked directly into her eyes, intending to repeat his protests, to make her understand him, but faltered beneath the intensity of her gaze. Ace, he realized, would never take "no" for an answer. Not to this question. "I'll do my best," was all the Doctor said.

"Good." Ace turned that uncomfortably hard gaze on Kyris. "While you're doing that, we'll be looking for the Master. When we find him, we'll make him tell us what he did, make him help you fix it."

"This isn't a Time Lord thing!" Noni burst out. She'd risen to her feet, and although the tears continued to stream down her cheeks, she'd brought herself under control enough to follow the conversation. "The Master probably stole someone else's technology, just like he stole the technology to control the TARDIS from anywhere, just like he stole the technology to transfer his consciousness into a new body! What if even he doesn't know how to reverse it?"

"He'll know." Ace's voice was confident. "If only because he would want to be able to fix it if it happened to him. He'll know, and we'll make him tell us."

"Kyris, I don't think I can do anything to bring back your healing abilities, either." There it was, the last block on the headstone of their hopes. "It's somehow tied in to the genetic tampering the Master did. It doesn't appear to be something I can work on separately, although I will try to do so," he hastened to add. "I'm sorry." The words were simple, but the Doctor meant them.

"You're not the one who's going to be sorry." Ace's voice was vicious. Hatred burned in her eyes. "That bastard is going to pay for this. I'll kill him." She meant it, too, and Kyris, the one to normally counsel restraint, couldn't find it in him to try and calm her down.

"If it's the last thing we do," he agreed instead. His father looked at them, opened his mouth as if to object, then slowly closed it. "He's done worse than kill us. Don't tell Susan this is what happened to us," he added fiercely. "Even when she's grown. Don't you dare tell her." He had accepted the inevitability of the trap the Master had laid for them, even if Ace hadn't.

"I won't," his father agreed, and never mind that he'd already told Susan he would report on her parents' ultimate fates when next he visited her. Her and her husband and three children, two of them named for people she would never see again. He wished suddenly that he'd forced Kyris to meet her when Ace discovered her identity, so that she'd at least have one memory of his presence to treasure. But it was too late for that; the Master had taken his revenge in a manner calculated to cause the most pain, then vanished into the mists of time and space before he could be forced to reverse it.

"I want proof." Ace's voice was brittle, edged with belligerence. "Take us to see her, prove it to me, that I can't hold her in my arms."

"Ace, I know I'm right," the Doctor said, trying to find the right words, to make her understand the futility of such an effort. "The mathematics are complicated, the genetics even more so, but I understand enough to know that what I'm telling you is the truth."

"Prove it," Ace snarled. "Right now. Give us the coordinates of where she is, Kyris and I will take the Master's TARDIS and find out for ourselves. Without him on board, mucking things up, it works the way it's supposed to. Kyris can pilot it now."

The Doctor hesitated, seeking his son's eyes. Kyris looked exhausted, worn out, but when Ace put out her hand, he took it without hesitation. "We're going to try. If it works, we'll bring Susan back to Gallifrey."

"And if it doesn't?" The Doctor's voice said "when" instead of "if".

"Then we'll hunt down the Master," Ace replied. "You concentrate on figuring out exactly how he did this to us. We'll find out where the rat has slunk off to. And don't worry," she added. "We'll keep him alive until we can force him to fix this." _And no longer than that,_ her expression said.

"Is that what you want?" The Doctor asked his son. Kyris nodded, pulling Ace closer and wrapping his arm around her shoulder. The Doctor took a step back. "Very well. I promise I will never stop searching for way to cure this."

"How will we find you?" Kyris asked suddenly. "Should we set up a place and time to meet?"

The Doctor reached into his pocket and pulled out the device he'd created for tracking the Master's TARDIS. "Use this to find me," he said, placing it into his son's hand.

"What is it?"

"It's a more sophisticated version of what I put together the first time we were tracking the Master's TARDIS," his father explained. "It can easily be calibrated to locate my own instead. I'll transfer the information from my TARDIS before Noni and I leave." He leveled a glance at the young woman in question. "I presume you'll be coming with me?" She nodded, using her sleeve to wipe her face dry. He returned his attention to Kyris. "Since I want you to find me, you can rest assured this will work the way it's supposed to."

Kyris let go of Ace long enough to step over to his father's side and offer his hand. The Doctor took it, then pulled his son closer for a long embrace. "Godspeed," he whispered in Kyris' ear. Ace merely nodded at him curtly. He recognized this mood; she was set on a particular course, and nothing was going to be allowed to distract her. Especially not sentiment.

Noni, however, was having none of it. She hugged Kyris as he returned to Ace's side, then threw her arms around Ace, who endured the embrace but seemed unable to spare the energy to return it with any enthusiasm. She nodded when Noni whispered her farewells and good lucks, allowed her cheek to be kissed, but that was all. It was going to be the greatest challenge of her life, trying to find the Master when no one knew where he was or even what he looked like, but this outcome was inevitable. She and Kyris, chasing the Master, while the Doctor chased a cure.

"It's time to go." Noni moved away from the other two with a great deal of reluctance. She wanted to go with them, he knew without her saying anything, but they both knew that was impossible. Ace and Kyris needed to do this on their own, and Leela would have a few choice words for him if he allowed her eldest daughter to disappear into the void without what she would consider adequate supervision.

"It'll be good to get home," was all she said. There were still tears glittering on her cheeks, leaking from the edges of her eyes. Watching Ace and Kyris suffer like this, knowing in her gut that the Doctor was right and they would never see Susan again, was as painful as giving Susan away had been. Worse, even, although she'd sworn nothing could possibly hurt as badly as that moment.

"Your parents must be frantic," Kyris as he opened the main door, letting in the warm afternoon breeze. "They'll be relieved to see you're all right."

"Yeah." Noni's voice was unenthusiastic. Returning home, back to Gallifrey, trying to live the life she'd had before all this…it wasn't going to be easy, but she suspected the Doctor wasn't about to invite her to keep traveling with him. She sensed he needed to be alone just as much as Ace and Kyris did.

They left, without another word, the Doctor trudging toward his TARDIS in stoic silence, Noni glancing backward with every step, blinking away the tears that threatened to once again overwhelm her. When they arrived, she didn't immediately follow the Doctor inside, electing instead to watch the Master's TARDIS until it abruptly vanished. She took that to indicatethat the data transfer was complete, and reluctantly went inside.

The Doctor cleared his throat as she closed the door behind her. He began manipulating levers on the Console, but slowly. "We have one stop to make before I take you home..."

"Your first self, I know," Noni agreed. She looked at him, scrubbed tiredly at her eyes and slowly moved toward the interior door. "To take care of his memories, right?"

He nodded. "Unfortunately." He hesitated. "I could take you home first..."

"Take care of the unfinished business first, but don't expect me to come with you to see him." Her eyes filled with pain. "I don't think I could bear to see Susan again, not knowing what I know..." Her voice trailed off and she turned sharply away. Without another word she pulled the interior door open and dashed through it. It slammed shut behind her, and the Doctor was alone.


	24. Loose Ends

**Earth, Late 20th Century**

"I rather expected I'd see you again. Come in, come in." The Doctor stepped back, allowing his future self entrance yet again to the quiet house he currently occupied. He peered over his shoulder. "Where's the young lady with the fiery temper?"

"She's waiting on the TARDIS." He followed his first self into the parlor. It looked exactly as he remembered it, with a few telling additions. A pile of nursery furniture, still in boxes, crowded against the overloaded bookshelves, and a cradle had replaced one of the chairs flanking the fireplace. A cradle he recognized. He took a moment to confirm that it was occupied, smiling briefly at the sight of Susan, safe and sound and exactly where she was meant to be.

"Couldn't risk her coming back, eh? I quite understand. She seems very attached to Susan, very devoted." He glanced down at the baby as well, and an identical smile crossed his own features. "As you can see, I haven't quite completed all the arrangements, but I can assure you, Susan and I will be leaving this time period very soon. I wouldn't want to make it easy for whoever's after her to find her, hmm?"

"She needs to grow up on the TARDIS, but you already know that," the Doctor said wearily. "In my timeline, everything's been put to rights. There's just one thing left to do..."

"Yes, those pesky memories, quite right, quite right." The Doctor blinked in surprise. That wasn't something he'd shared with his first self during their mental communion, the need to remove his memories of how he came to have Susan living with him. The other man looked pleased with himself. "Surprised that I worked it out, are you?"

"Yes, although I shouldn't be. You seem to be agreeable to the idea," his seventh self replied cautiously.

"Not agreeable, young man, not at all agreeable." The self-congratulatory smile turned instantly to a glare. "But I understand the necessity. Do I have future problems with regenerative trauma, memory loss, things of that nature?" When his future self hesitated, he tutted. "Come, come, dear boy, you're about to erase my memories of this meeting, so what's the harm? Answer me."

"Yes, on occasion," his future self replied defensively. "Which we both know is not uncommon..."

"Nor is it common," was the snappish response. "Not so common as you would like to believe, and certainly not common in our genetic Thread. So there a very good possibility that this very deed you're about to perform could be what brings about our future problems. Not that I expect that to stop us," he added, raising a hand at the protest he anticipated from his future self. "You've obviously thought it through and decided that keeping Susan safe is your first priority."

"As it should be," his seventh self pointed out.

"As it should be," his first self agreed. "Which is why I am willing to submit to the procedure." He settled down comfortably in the chair next to the sleeping baby. "Fire away, my boy. Leave me enough information so that I remember to raise Susan in the TARDIS and tell me something about her parents so I don't spend fruitless decades looking for them." His gaze sharpened. "They would be fruitless, eh?"

The Doctor nodded. "The Master has seen to that."

His first self frowned. "Yet they're not dead, are they."

"No. But they may as well be, to Susan. He's altered their molecular structure at the quantum level, tampered with their DNA, and done who knows what else to them." He suddenly looked decades older. "Kyris was a Healer, did I share that with you? Perhaps the greatest Healer Gallifrey has ever produced. The Master's tampering destroyed that ability as well as putting Ace and Kyris permanently out of temporal phase with Susan. I've promised to do what I can, but I'm afraid it's irreversible."

They both fell silent, contemplating the evil of the man they'd once hailed as school-mate, even friend. "How he could ever have gone so wrong, I'll never know," the Doctor's first self said sadly. "So where are they now, Ace and Kyris?"

"Looking for the Master, although I doubt they'll ever find him. But Ace has never been one to sit around waiting for someone else to rescue her, and she's very angry right now, rightfully so. So is Kyris," he added. "It would appear our son's inherited a bit of a temper somehow."

"Must be from his mother's side," the Doctor's first self said with apparent seriousness. "Spending your life in a quest for revenge probably isn't the best way to live; I sincerely hope they realize that and find something better to do. Because I also doubt they'll ever find the Master, just as I doubt you'll ever find a cure. Or else my raising Susan would be over before it ever began." He straightened in his chair, staring directly at his seventh self. The time for talk was over. "I'm ready."

"I'll leave you with the knowledge that her parents loved her, that they never wanted to leave her. And the knowledge that someday you'll have access to the memories again. I think that will be enough, that and the knowledge that she's in danger from an old enemy." He closed his eyes, and began the process of making himself forget one of the most important events of his many lives.

**oOo**

The Doctor's eyes snapped open. Had he fallen into a doze, resting comfortably in the remaining chair by the fireplace? Careless of him, with so many preparations to make before leaving...His gaze fell on Susan, sleeping peacefully in her cradle. That was what must have done it, he decided. Nothing like watching a sleeping baby to lull one into sleep as well.

He pulled himself out of his chair and frowned over the pile of furniture he'd accumulated. He had to get Susan onto the TARDIS quickly; there was some old enemy after her, and the TARDIS was the safest place for her to be right now. He picked up an armful of smaller items. The TARDIS was out back, in the kitchen garden; he'd been here on Earth long enough that ivy was starting to grow up its sides. He rather hated to disturb the old girl after her long slumber, but he'd stayed here long enough. What had he been thinking, anyway? He was nowhere near ready to retire prior to regeneration, and found he looked forward to showing Susan the universe.

Smiling, he carried his armful of baby things toward the back door, and into his future.


End file.
